Chandigarh: Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria on Tuesday announced that Chandigarh has achieved ‘fully literate’ status, with the Union Territory’s literacy rate reaching 99.93%.
The milestone, achieved under the ULLAS (Understanding Lifelong Learning for All in Society) programme, was announced at the ULLAS–Nav Saksharon ka Alankaran Samaroh, a felicitation ceremony organised by the Education Department of the Chandigarh Administration to honour newly literate citizens.
Kataria said the achievement has helped Chandigarh surpass the 95% literacy benchmark set under the National Education Policy 2020. With this, Chandigarh has become the sixth state or UT in the country and the second Union Territory to achieve full literacy, he said.
According to official data shared at the event, 15,556 citizens participated in the literacy programme and 14,711 successfully cleared the literacy assessment, raising the UT’s literacy rate from 93.7% to 99.93%. Highlighting the social impact of the programme, Kataria said women’s literacy in Chandigarh rose from 90.7% to 99.89%, describing it as a significant step towards women’s empowerment.
The Governor credited the achievement to the collective efforts of the Chandigarh Administration, the Department of School Education, teachers, volunteers, NGOs and social organisations who worked to identify and educate non-literate citizens. He also noted that the programme enabled participants to acquire both academic and digital literacy.
Emphasising that literacy is the foundation of lifelong learning, Kataria said education would play a crucial role in achieving the vision of “Viksit Bharat 2047.”
Among those present on the occasion were H. Rajesh Prasad, Chief Secretary of Chandigarh Administration; Prerna Puri, Secretary, Education Department, UT Chandigarh; Nitish Singla, Director School Education, UT Chandigarh; and Surender Singh Dahiya, Director, State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), UT Chandigarh, along with neo-literate citizens and officials of the Chandigarh Administration.
