Ranchi: The Government of Jharkhand has decided to launch the centre's flagship proramme — Sakshar Bharat— in four districts of the state to spread literacy particularly among the women folk.

The districts identified to be taken up under the programme are Ranchi, Dhanbad, Dumka and Hazaribagh, where literacy rate among women is less than 50 per cent.

According to Primary Education Director DK Saxena, the centre has allocated Rs 12  crore to the state for a time bound programme to achieve 80 per cent literacy by 2017. Presently, the state has 54 per cent literate people, while literacy rate among women is around 40 per cent. The fund will be released in three phases.

Elaborating the new scheme that would replace the National Literacy Mission in phases, Saxena said the state government has planned roping in local schools and teachers as ‘collaborators’ to provide academic support at the village level.

"This apart, teachers will be asked to motivate non-literate parents to enroll themselves as learners and motivate educated youth to help as educators or double up as teachers in literacy classes," the Director said.

In the first phase, the state government aims to make about 10 lakh rural people literate for which a sum of about Rs 7.29 crore would be spent. To make that the project run in a smooth way, proposal to set up 1144 adult education centre has already been mooted.

"We have already procured the Cabinet nod for appointment teachers for primary schools to achieve the objective,” Jharkhand Human Resources Minister Hemlal Murmu said.

Besides filling up the vacancies of teachers in primary schools, the government has decided to appoint five coordinators at the state level to monitor the implementation of the project in the select districts.

Each district too would have five additional coordinators. To ensure that the delivery mechanism worked in tandem with the government's plan at the grassroots level, the government would further appoint 43 programme supervisors in each block, the officials said.

Further, the government has also proposed paying incentives to the people engaged in the mission to boost their motivation. Training coordinators and supervisors, who would be 2300 in numbers, would be paid the honorarium at Rs 1000 per month, whereas teachers engaged in the new mission would be getting Rs 2000 per month.

As many as 9 lakh volunteers would also be appointed to take up the classes at the rate of Rs 230 per months, Saxena said.