KOZIKODE: Bureaucratic hurdles and petty politics have dampened the spirit of the second phase of the ambitious literacy drive in Kerala. The such publicized house to house visits of January 6 to enumerate operates and neo literates in the state have ended up as yet another government mela shorn of public enthusiasm thanks to the political skullduggery of the late government.
The amazing success of the Akshara Keralam the first phase of the drive under the previous regime was a talking point in the last general elections. And that has been reason enough for the Karvanakarans United Democratic Front (UDF) government to dismantle the infrastructure of the project as soon as it came to power.
Later in the face of growing public criticism the government decided to revive the Akshara Keralam though in a new form and with greater bureaucratic pat won age with the day today running of the project being transferred from the peoples commit tees to bureaucrats.
Inevitably what was once a people’s movement became a bureaucratic exercise and failed to pick up momentum though the UDF government planned an auspicious start to its own brand of the program on Gandhi Jayanti ay last year it remains a nonstarter even after three months while the government has made undue haste to shelve the project report of the original program it is yet come out with a renewed scheme to start literacy classes throughout the state by mid-January. Each district needs about 25000 instructors for the scheme to be really elective but not even half the numbers have so far been identified
The master trainee’s camps” that were hastily organized in the districts petered out with no attendance in a camp in Kozhikode district for instance only four trainees turned up though information had been sent to 400 trainees. In yet another two day camp in Kannur district only 18 out of the 200 trainees invited Serine test the program.
The ward level literacy commit tees the basic units of the project should have been formed by November last year but are still being hastily got together. The house to house drive petered out mainly because of the absence of these grass root committees Only 50000 households were eventually covered during the drive though the government declared that 50 lakh houses would be covered in first day itself The district level literacy program offices are parked with glossy pamphlets and publications announcing the benefits of being Literate but no arrangements have been made to monitor the distribution of those costly handouts while money is being squandered on sleek propaganda material the textbook for the second phase has not yet been prepared much less printed. They are expected to be: ready six months from now. While the project itself crumbles the government is merely running up astronomical bills purportedly for the benefit of the project. Over Rs 50 lakh have been spent to far con kala Jathas and processions carried out through the state as a run up to the formal inauguration of the project.
But as far as the public interest went the processions were low key affairs There is now the very real danger that the public may be turned off by the project itself.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1992
