Dumka, April 24: For a district that once claimed a 70 per cent literacy rate, here’s a reality check: seventeen out of 18 women relied on their thumb impressions to get compensation receipts doled out by the administration on April 20.

The startling revelation came to the fore at the block headquarters of Shikaripara, where BDO Raj Kishore Prasad was distributing cheques of Rs 10,000 each to the dependants of persons who had died unnatural deaths.

Surprisingly, district authorities have no clue about the 2011 census data on Dumka’s literacy rate, which stands at 63 per cent — much higher than the 48 per cent recorded in the 2001 census.

“We are yet to receive an official copy of the census report. However, Jharkhand has witnessed an overall increase of 13 per cent in its literacy rate, with the female literacy rate going up by 17 per cent,” said district superintendent of education Rajiv Lochan, also the secretary of the mission in Dumka.

The Sakshar Bharat Mission, a central government initiative launched in Dumka in 2009 for a three-year period, has set a target of 80 per cent literacy rate in the district by 2012. The mission is aimed at enrolling individuals aged 15 years or above.

However, Gautam Chatterjee, an activist associated with literacy campaigns, said the mission had failed to make much impact in Dumka owing to lack of infrastructure, including buildings for running lok siksha kendras (adult education centres) at the panchayat level.

The mission envisaged setting up 206 kendras — one in each panchayat — in the district as centres for learners in their jurisdiction.

“I have brought the issue of lack of buildings for running the kendras before the district authorities time and again, but in vain,” said block literacy manager of the district Ashish Mandal.

Every kendra has two siksha preraks or teachers. They are entitled to an income of Rs 2,000, with Rs 8.24 lakh earmarked as their cumulative monthly salary.

Deepakanti, a shiksha prerak at the lok siksha kendra in Bhairavpur panchayat under Jama block, said it was wrong to hold the initiative to be a failure. But she admitted that the number of people, especially women, who were enrolled in the programme, had been disappointing.

“About 10 to 12 women, all belonging to SC communities, attend classes at the lok siksha kendra regularly,” Deepakanti told The Telegraph, adding that more women were eager to turn up, but failed to because of domestic reasons.

Fifty-year-old Pinki Soren of Jarjokha village wished the lok siksha kendras had started functioning earlier. “But”, she added, “I have joined classes in February and now I am able to recognise Hindi alphabets and numbers,”

The men, on the other hand, are not too eager to join the ongoing literacy drive. Kailash Kumar Mirdha, a shiksha prerak in the lok siksha kendra at Jarjokha, pointed out that only five to six men turned up for classes.

Although the mission was launched two years back, the material required for running the classes, including solar lamps, books, exercise copies, pencils, chairs and tables were provided to the lok siksha kendras only three months ago.

“With no teaching material available, we were helpless in carrying out the campaign. Now, around 20 women between 25 to 55 years of age are attending classes,” claimed Sima Baski, a teacher at the kendra in Chikania panchayat.

She said women did not prefer to come out of their homes after sunset, so classes were mostly held during the day.

Chatterjee claimed that most of the lok siksha kendras were not functional. “The lok siksha kendras encourage malpractices by the authorities concerned in terms of misappropriating funds allocated to them,” he said.

He also pointed fingers at the government for not putting the newly elected panchayat bodies in charge of the mission for better implementation. A district level committee comprising administrative and education officials is currently handling the initiative.

“Now that the rural bodies have been formed, the government and the district administration have been intentionally delaying the handover,” Chatterjee alleged.

Interestingly, the district administration, in 1993-94, had declared that Dumka had attained 70 per cent literacy rate after launching the Total Literacy Campaign under the National Literacy Mission.