Agartala, Nov. 10: Tripura is well on the course of achieving complete literacy through successful implementation of the Continuing Education Programme (CEP), which is the third phase of the total literacy campaign launched in January 1995.
The profession and trade-related training imparted by literacy centres and financial assistance in the form of loans given by the state government to self-help groups, comprising 10 learners each, has made the literacy campaign attractive for the people.
Tripura now occupies 12th position in terms of literacy in India and second position in Northeast after Mizoram. In the course of a visit to the Lichu Bagan nodal literacy centre, Braja Gopal Mazumder, director of State Resource Centre (SRC) and the pivot behind the literacy campaign, said that the campaign had been launched in Tripura on January 1, 1995 with 3,0000 volunteers and literacy workers. Out of 4.9 lakh adult illiterates in the state 4.41 lakh were enrolled in the literacy centres and finally 3.84 lakh were certified as neo-literates. “The Post Literacy Programme (PLP) commenced on August 15, 1998 and concluded successfully in 1999,” Mazumder said. The CEP imparts trade and profession-related training to the learners.
“While imparting general education, the CEP centres are also training people, specially women, in various trades and professions like sewing, handicraft, poultry, cattle farming, tailoring, embroidery and so on,” he said.
Altogether 1,781 self-help groups comprising 10 persons each have been formed and many of them have only women as members. “Many women have already started earning after undergoing professional and trade-related training,” Mazumder added. “With this pace we are sure to make Tripura totally literate in a few years,” he said.
Tribal woman killed
A Reang woman was gangraped and hacked to death by a group of suspected National Liberation Front of Tripura militants on November 4.
According to the police, Baranti Reang (36), wife of jhum cultivator Narodmoni and resident of Shuklaipara village under Pecharthal police station of North Tripura, had gone to the jungle near the village to collect wild potatoes last week.
When she failed to return, her husband launched a search and finally traced the mangled body tied around a teak tree yesterday. On being informed, police personnel from Pecharthal rushed to the spot and recovered the body.
Shocked, residents of Shuklaipara village have petitioned superintendent of police (North) Saurav Tripathi to initiate action against the militants.
