Coimbatore, Mar 16: The target of 75 per cent literacy by 2010 has almost reached, as the rate of literacy has gone upto to 66 per cent now, from the 52 per cent in 1991, Union HRD Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi said today. Joshi, told reporters at Coimbatore airport, the number of illiterates in the country had come down to three crore, after NDA government assumed office, which had never happened in the history of the country. Due to the special drive for female education initiated by his ministry, female literacy in rural areas had gone up at the rate of 21 per cent and male literacy by 14 per cent, Joshi said. The country had received international recognition and Unesco had given 'Noma' award for the second consecutive year, for this effort, he said. When asked about achieving the target in backward states, Joshi said that almost all the backward states were progressing and expected to achieve higher literacy rate in few years.

Dwelling upon the achievement of his ministry, he said that of the 17 regional engineering colleges, 15 colleges had been upgraded and transformed into national institute of technology, while process was on for remaining two colleges.

Moreover, there was rapid increase in engineering colleges which had gone to over 1,200 presently from 500, when NDA assumed office, he said, adding that the capacity of the colleges had also been increased three times.

Bureau Report