Literacy in India has been increasing as more and more people receive a better education, but it is still far from all-encompassing. In 2023, the degree of literacy in India was about 77 percent, with the majority of literate Indians being men. It is estimated that the global literacy rate for people aged 15 and above is about 86 percent. How to read a literacy rateIn order to identify potential for intellectual and educational progress, the literacy rate of a country covers the level of education and skills acquired by a country’s inhabitants. Literacy is an important indicator of a country’s economic progress and the standard of living – it shows how many people have access to education. However, the standards to measure literacy cannot be universally applied. Measures to identify and define illiterate and literate inhabitants vary from country to country: In some, illiteracy is equated with no schooling at all, for example. Writings on the wallGlobally speaking, more men are able to read and write than women, and this disparity is also reflected in the literacy rate in India – with scarcity of schools and education in rural areas being one factor, and poverty another. Especially in rural areas, women and girls are often not given proper access to formal education, and even if they are, many drop out. Today, India is already being surpassed in this area by other emerging economies, like Brazil, China, and even by most other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. To catch up, India now has to offer more educational programs to its rural population, not only on how to read and write, but also on traditional gender roles and rights.

India literacy rate for 2022 was 76.32%, a 7.02% increase from 2011.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>India literacy rate for 2011 was <strong>69.30%</strong>, a <strong>6.55% increase</strong> from 2006.</li>
<li>India literacy rate for 2006 was <strong>62.75%</strong>, a <strong>1.74% increase</strong> from 2001.</li>
<li>India literacy rate for 2001 was <strong>61.01%</strong>, a <strong>12.79% increase</strong> from 1991.</li>
</ul>Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.

Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) in India was reported at 77 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

As per the estimates for the year 2023, the literacy rate among women in India was ** percent. Meanwhile, the literacy rate among their male Indian counterparts reached approximately 85 percent in the same period. The adult literacy rate in the country stood at ** percent.

In 2022, the degree of literacy in India was about 97 percent among the youth between the ages of 15 to 24 years. An exponential increase in the literary rate was seen over the years from 1981 in the country.

Literacy Rate: Tamil Nadu data was reported at 80.100 % in 12-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 73.450 % for 12-01-2001. Literacy Rate: Tamil Nadu data is updated decadal, averaging 58.525 % from Dec 1961 (Median) to 12-01-2011, with 6 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 80.100 % in 12-01-2011 and a record low of 36.390 % in 12-01-1961. Literacy Rate: Tamil Nadu data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Education Sector – Table IN.EDA001: Literacy Rate.

The data shows the year-wise and state or union territory-wise literacy and rural and urban literacy, for male, female, and total literacy, in India according to Census.

Note: 1. Literacy rate is defined as the population of literates in the population aged 7 year and above. 2. The 1991 data (Excluding Jammu & Kashmir)and 2001 data (Excludes figures of Paomata, Mao Maran and Pura sub-divisions of Senapati district of Manipur for 2001) refer to Census of India.

Analysis of ‘Govt Of India Literacy Rate’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/doncorleone92/govt-of-india-literacy-rate on 13 February 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Context

This is the official dataset released by the govt. of India based on the census 2001 and 2011 survey.

Content

The data is of 35 Indian states and union territories. The literacy rate is spread across the major parameters - Overall, Rural and Urban. All the data is percentage of the total population of that state.

Acknowledgements

Derived from the govt. of India's official site.

Inspiration

Understand the literacy rate in India and which states/UT's have the highest growth in terms of increased literacy rates.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Literacy Rate: Delhi data was reported at 86.200 % in 12-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 81.670 % for 12-01-2001. Literacy Rate: Delhi data is updated decadal, averaging 73.615 % from Dec 1961 (Median) to 12-01-2011, with 6 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 86.200 % in 12-01-2011 and a record low of 61.950 % in 12-01-1961. Literacy Rate: Delhi data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Education Sector – Table IN.EDA001: Literacy Rate.

Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24) in India was reported at 96 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) in India was reported at 85 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

Literacy Rate: Punjab data was reported at 75.800 % in 12-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 69.650 % for 12-01-2001. Literacy Rate: Punjab data is updated decadal, averaging 58.510 % from Dec 1971 (Median) to 12-01-2011, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 75.800 % in 12-01-2011 and a record low of 34.120 % in 12-01-1971. Literacy Rate: Punjab data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Education Sector – Table IN.EDA001: Literacy Rate.

Literacy Rate: Goa data was reported at 88.700 % in 12-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 82.010 % for 12-01-2001. Literacy Rate: Goa data is updated decadal, averaging 65.710 % from Dec 1951 (Median) to 12-01-2011, with 7 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 88.700 % in 12-01-2011 and a record low of 23.480 % in 12-01-1951. Literacy Rate: Goa data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Education Sector – Table IN.EDA001: Literacy Rate.

Among the states in India, Kerala had the highest literary rate with ** percent in 2011. Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh and the capital territory of Delhi followed Kerala with above average literacy rates. Notably, all the leading states in the country had more literate males than females at the time of the census.

As of 2021, India recorded a higher nationwide literacy rate among men than women, at respectively **** percent of male population and **** percent of female population. The gender literacy gap was more evident in rural India, with only ** percent of women aged between 15 and 49 years being literate, compared to over ** percent of their male counterparts in the region.

This statistic describes the results of a survey among rural and urban Indian households about the literacy rate based on social groups in *******. For instance, literacy rate among the other backward classes (OBCs) amounted to about ** percent. Literacy rate was lowest among the scheduled tribes during the survey period.

Literacy Rate: Uttar Pradesh data was reported at 67.700 % in 12-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 56.270 % for 12-01-2001. Literacy Rate: Uttar Pradesh data is updated decadal, averaging 32.650 % from Dec 1951 (Median) to 12-01-2011, with 7 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 67.700 % in 12-01-2011 and a record low of 12.020 % in 12-01-1951. Literacy Rate: Uttar Pradesh data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Education Sector – Table IN.EDA001: Literacy Rate.

Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24) in India was reported at 98 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, female (%) in India was reported at 30.29 % in 2018, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. India - Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, female - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

Documentation

Description and codebook for subset of harmonized variables:

Section 2

Guide to datasets:

Full Project Name: The Impact of Mother Literacy and Participation Programs on Child Learning in India

Unique ID: 458

PIs: Rukmini Banerji, James Berry, Marc Shotland

Location: Indian states of Bihar and Rajasthan

Sample: Around 9,000 households in 480 villages

Timeline: 2010 to 2012

Target Group: Children Parents Rural population Women and girls

Outcome of Interest: Employment, Student learning ,Women’s/girls’ decision-making, Gender attitudes and norms

Intervention Type: Early childhood development, Tracking and remedial education, Empowerment training

Associated publications: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20150390

More information: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/impact-mother-literacy-and-participation-programs-child-learning-india

Dataverse: Banerji, Rukmini; Berry, James; Shotland, Marc, 2017, “The Impact of Maternal Literacy and Participation Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in India”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/19PPE7, Harvard Dataverse, V1

Section 3

Survey instrument:

Testing tools:

Section 4

Survey instrument:

Testing tools:

Section 5

No associated survey instrument

Section 6

This dataset was created on 2021-10-06 20:35:41.921 by merging multiple datasets together. The source datasets for this version were:

Maternal Literacy in India Baseline: Modified from ml_merged : contains data with variables only from baseline surveys

Maternal Literacy in India Endline: Modified from ml_merged : contains data with variables only from endline surveys

Maternal Literacy in India Raw Administrative Statistics: ml_admin_stats_raw: Contains administrative statistics from the 2011 census and aser surveys used in online Appendix Table 1 in the paper; this is merged with some of the survey data to create ml_admin_stats