Mizoram is inching closer towards achieving its dream of becoming India's most literate state — it attained a rate of 90.27 per cent in March, second only to Kerala's 90.9 per cent.
"Mizoram is making concerted efforts to become number one in the country during the current
fiscal," said R Lalthangliana, the school education minister of this northeastern state.
"The desire to be the most literate state has acquired the dimension of a mass movement with churches, NGOs and student bodies cooperating with the government in the endeavour," Lalthangliana said.
"The improvement in literacy is due to not only the elementary education system but also the efforts put in by the adult education wing of the school education department and cooperation from churches, NGOs and citizens."
However, the three southern districts of Lunglei, Saiha and Lawngtlai have achieved very low rates compared to those in northern and central Mizoram, a state with a population of less than a million of which nearly 87 per cent practice Christianity.
Priority has been given to these districts to ensure that they do not hold us back in our drive," Lalthangliana said. "It's only a matter of less than one per cent and we hope to achieve the feat this fiscal year," he said.