Bihar BJP chief CP Thakur adresses the news meet in Patna on Saturday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Jan. 14: The BJP today announced the launch of Shiksha Abhiyan, a programme under which party leaders and workers from the state to block-levels would convince people to send their wards to school.

The party leadership said the programme aimed at giving a boost to the government’s efforts to improve the literacy rate in the state.

“We have decided to launch Shiksha Abhiyan, Since January, February and March are considered the admission seasons, our party leaders and workers would go to remote locations in urban and rural areas to convince people to send their wards to school,” state BJP chief C.P. Thakur said on Saturday.

He added that the party was prompted to launch Shiksha Abhiyan keeping in mind the 2011 census report, which had put the state at the bottom of the literacy ladder. Thakur was accompanied by BJP vice-president Hari Shankar Sharma, party’s sports cell president Arvind Kumar Singh, Kisan Morcha president Dhirendra Singh and others.

Citing the provisional data of the 2011 census, Thakur said the latest census put the state’s overall literacy rate at 63.82 per cent as against the national average of 74.04 per cent. The state’s male and female literacy rates have been put at 73.39 per cent and 53.11 per cent respectively.

Comparing the figures with that of the 2001 census, he said the state has taken a big leap over the past decade as it has recorded a 16 per cent increase.

The 2001 census showed the state’s literacy at 47 per cent, that included male (59.68 per cent) and female (37.12 per cent) rates, Thakur added.