Despite the best efforts of the government and other agencies, it is impossible to pinpoint the number of Indians who are illiterate. Official statistics state that, as of 2001, 34.62 per cent of Indians cannot read or write.

That means about 350 million uneducated people, assuming the country's population to be in excess of 1 billion. According to a report published by the United Nations in 1998, slightly under one-third of the world's non-literate people aged 15 and above are in India.

Going by the current rate of literacy growth in India, it will take the country 30 years or more to reach a literacy rate of 90 per cent. The issue is exacerbated by an ever-swelling population that grew by over 200 million between 1991 and 2001. It is in this context — the increase in the rate of literacy being offset by a burgeoning populace — that it becomes vital to put in place new programmes that augment existing efforts to lift India out of the illiteracy trap.

Target age group
The big challenge for India lies in teaching its adult illiterates how to read and write. Considering economic and biological factors, the most crucial segment among them is the 15-to-35 age group. Government estimates put the current number of uneducated people in this age group at 28 per cent. By making them literate India can derive a whole lot of benefits in a variety of economic, social and human-development indicators.

The constraints in the country's path to reducing adult illiteracy are many: the size and diversity of its population; the time it takes, by conventional methods, to teach a person to read and write; high dropout rates; the lack of trained and dedicated teachers; and inadequate infrastructure. The computer-based functional literacy (CBFL) programme addresses and overcomes these impediments through the innovative use of information technology.

For any democracy to function effectively, and for any people to improve their chances of economic betterment, literacy is an imperative. As a wise man once said, "Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." The Tata Group's endeavour with the CBFL project is to help pave the path to that education.