The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Illiteracy biggest hurdle in empowerment of poor'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 09, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Illiteracy biggest hurdle in empowerment of poor'

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Asserting that literacy has to be integral to any strategy for poverty alleviation as it is the single biggest hurdle on the path to empowerment of the poor, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat speaking at the International Literacy Day function here on Friday said economic empowerment of the poor with access to basic education and health care can happen only after they become literate.

"Literacy opens the gateway to comprehensive economic social and cultural empowerment of the people, particularly women," he added.

Commending the national literacy mission, the Vice-President said that sustained efforts are needed to cover every illiterate.

Listing the achievement of the literacy mission, Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh expressed concern over the literacy rate among the minorities, especially the Muslim minorities in a few States.

He said that one should not treat the literacy mission merely as a campaign but it should become a national duty of every citizen to remove illiteracy from the country.

Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development M.A.A. Fatmi said: "The stakeholders of the literacy campaign should focus on women's literacy because there are still many districts in the country where female literacy is less than 30 per cent."

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