Ten states and UTs became fully literate since 2024: Ullas, the central government scheme behind the declarations

The Centre counts a state or UT as fully literate once 95% of its adults can read and write. Ullas has certified 30 million learners so far.

Jammu and Kashmir declared itself fully literate in September, becoming the 10th state or Union territory (UT) to do so since June 2024, under the Centre’s adult literacy programme Ullas, for people aged 15 and above who missed formal schooling.

Under Ullas, a state or UT is considered fully literate once at least 95% of its population aged 15 and above can read and write. (Representative image/HT File)

The 10 states are Ladakh, Mizoram, Goa, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir. According to the Union education ministry’s benchmark, a state or UT is considered fully literate once at least 95% of its population aged 15 and above can read and write, still allowing for up to one in 20 adults who still cannot.

The declarations rest largely on door-to-door surveys that the states conduct on their own by counting the non-literate adults. National surveys measure literacy differently, so their figures cannot be set directly against a state’s declared rate.

For instance, Goa declared itself fully literate under Ullas in May 2025, reporting a literacy rate of 99.5%. The education ministry’s statement on the declaration cited the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), a household survey run by the central government’s National Statistics Office, which put Goa's overall literacy rate at 93.6% for 2023-24, and said the state’s survey showed it had surpassed that figure.

What does ‘fully literate’ mean?

The Union education ministry, in a letter to all states and UTs dated August 7, 2024, defined literacy as “the ability to read, write, and compute with comprehension, i.e., to identify, understand, interpret and create, along with critical life skills such as digital literacy, financial literacy, etc”.

On full literacy, it said: “Achieving ninety five percent literacy (95%) in a State/UT may be considered as equivalent to fully literate.” The ministry said the definition was drawn up with experts from the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and Unesco.

Ladakh, the first UT to declare full literacy, had done so on June 24, 2024, about six weeks before the letter set the benchmark in writing.

How does a state calculate its rate?

The ministry’s statement on Mizoram, the first state to declare full literacy, described a door-to-door survey carried out across the state in August and September 2023. The survey identified 3,026 non-literate people, of whom 1,692 joined Ullas classes.

By that count, the ministry said, Mizoram had crossed the 95% mark, and the PLFS for 2023-24 put its literacy rate at 98.2%. Mizoram had recorded 91.33% literacy in the 2011 Census.

The ministry’s statement on Goa’s declaration said the state had identified non-literate residents through its panchayat, municipal, social welfare, planning and women and child development directorates, and that its survey showed it had surpassed the PLFS figure and attained full literacy. Goa reported a literacy rate of 99.5%.

The PLFS and the Ullas declarations measure different things. The PLFS reports literacy for everyone aged seven and above, based on household responses. The Ullas benchmark applies to people aged 15 and above and rests on state surveys and a test for those identified as non-literate, so the two figures differ in age group, method and often in timing as well.

Where does India stand on literacy?

India’s literacy rate stood at 14% in 1947, according to figures provided by the education ministry. The 2011 Census recorded a literacy rate of 74.04%, with male literacy at 82.14% and female literacy at 65.46%.

The PLFS 2025 put literacy among people aged seven and above at 81.1%, with 89% in urban areas and 77.4% in rural areas. In rural India, 84.8% of men aged seven and above are literate against 70.3% of women, compared with 93.1% and 84.8% in urban areas.

The 2011 Census counted 257.6 million non-literate people aged 15 and above, of whom 166.8 million were women.

The Centre estimated in February 2022, as it approved the scheme, that about 181.2 million adults were still non-literate. This was after the Saakshar Bharat programme certified 76.4 million people as literate.

Ullas’s target of 50 million is a little over a quarter of that estimate. The scheme gives priority to women and girls, to people aged 15 to 35, and to districts where female literacy was below 60% in 2011, among other groups.

How does Ullas work?

Ullas combines face-to-face teaching with digital material and runs on volunteers. Its vision is ‘Jan Jan Saakshar’, literacy for every individual.

Schools serve as the unit of implementation. District and block authorities survey households, including through door-to-door visits, to identify non-literate people aged 15 and above and potential volunteer teachers. Learners are then paired with volunteers, who can be school and college students, teachers or community members, and who help them register and study. Learners use material developed by NCERT and state-developed resources in local languages, in schools and community spaces, and through the Ullas app on Android and iOS, which carries learning material in several Indian languages.

The programme trains and orients volunteers to work with adult learners. Beyond basic reading and arithmetic, the scheme has five components: foundational literacy and numeracy, critical life skills, basic education, vocational skills and continuing education.

What does the FLNAT test?

Learners finish by taking the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Test (FLNAT), and those who pass receive a certificate from the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

The test has three sections of 50 marks each, for reading, writing and numeracy, for a total of 150 marks. It is conducted in the learner’s regional language at District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) and government and aided schools.

In 2023 it was held twice, in March and September.

A pass – which is at least 33% marks each component – shows that a learner met the bar on the day of the test, and whether learners keep and use those skills needs separate tracking. The Centre's 2022 approval of the scheme provided for an annual survey of learning outcomes among 500 to 1,000 randomly selected learners in each state and UT.

How far has the programme got?

Ullas has a financial outlay of ₹1,037.90 crore for 2022-23 to 2026-27, of which the Centre bears ₹700 crore and the states ₹337.9 crore.

The Ullas portal lists 40.8 million registered learners and 5.26 million registered volunteers. Of the learners, 32.1 million have taken the FLNAT and 30 million passed, around 93.5% of those who sat it.

About 8.7 million registered learners, roughly a fifth, have yet to sit the FLNAT, and the 30 million certified so far make up 60% of the 50 million target, with the scheme’s funding period ending in March 2027.

How is Ullas different from earlier programmes?

Ullas is the latest in a series of adult literacy initiatives launched since Independence. Earlier efforts included programmes for farmers and women in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by the National Adult Education Programme and the National Literacy Mission, which ran from 1988 to 2009.

The Congress-led UPA government launched Saakshar Bharat in 2009 to provide functional literacy to people aged 15 and above, with links to skill development and further education. It ran until 2018.

Union education minister Pralhad Joshi, in his message on the Ullas website, said, “Unlike previous initiatives, ULLAS is driven by a deep sense of kartavyabodh—a collective responsibility to uplift every individual in our society. This sense of duty is what sets ULLAS apart and will propel us toward 100% literacy, a crucial step toward becoming a developed nation.”

What comes next?

Census 2027, the first national census since 2011, will record each person’s literacy and digital literacy as well. Population enumeration is scheduled for February 2027, and was set to begin in September 2026 in Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The results will give a count of literacy in each of the 10 declared states and UTs, measured by a single method across the country.

“It is good there is an ongoing programme enabling people to possess basic literacy. However, Ullas relies heavily on volunteers, rather than on sustained efforts by states and UTs to improve adult literacy. The government appears to be placing too much faith in volunteerism while not doing enough to fulfil its own responsibilities. Past adult literacy programmes suggest that volunteerism alone may not be enough to achieve meaningful improvements. Given India’s social diversity and digital divide, questions also arise about who will volunteer in villages and areas where there are few or no literate people. As for the assessment methodology, its effectiveness depends on whether the FLNAT is conducted in a language the learner understands and whether the skills acquired can be applied in everyday life,” said Navneet Sharma, a faculty member at the Department of Education in Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP), Dharamshala.

The Centre’s goal, set with reference to the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) – which includes Ullas – is full literacy across the country by 2030.