The number of illiterates is more than one crore. The State Literacy Mission, which was set up to solve this problem, has not held even one meeting in the last 10 years.
The mission formed under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu, late MP Brahmananda Panda and MLA Kalpataru Das and many other former MLAs among its elected members, informed School and Mass Education Minister Badri Naryan Patra in reply to a question by BJP MLA Dilip Ray in the State Assembly on Thursday.
The Minister said the State Literacy Mission is functioning since 2001. The managing body was reorganised under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister in 2006 last. There are five Ministers, 15 Government members and as many private members in the body.
Interestingly former Jagatsinghpur MP Brahmanda Panda, former Dharmasala MLA Kalpataru Das , former Talcher MLA Mahesh Sahu, former Potangi MLA Jayram Pangi , former Rairangpur MLA Draupadi Murmu and former Hindol MLA Anjali Behera are its private members. While Murmu is now the Jharkhand Governor, Pangi and Behera are no more MLAs. Similarly, Panda and Das have passed away.
But their names still find a place in the membership list. The Minister further said according to the 2011 census, there are 1,01, 99, 532 illiterates out of which the number of women is 69,27,098.