Literacy has been defined as the ability to read and write and understanding. Literacy is defined as the ability to read write and least a simple massage in many languages (Hassan, 2005). According to chandan, a person as literate if he or she can both read and write in any language. In India, the literacy rate is calculated excluding 0-6 age group of population. Indian Literacy is characterized with sharp differences in between the male and female, rural and urban areas and various population subgroups. The Indian Literacy rate are influenced by the factors of the cast based social structure, largely farm based economy, the prejudices against the females mobility and education, general low standard of living, high cost of education and growth of population which adds a large number of illiterate children to the country’s population every year. These are some of the factors that are varying from one taluk to taluk in Bidar district. However, the spatial literacy distribution is uneven and the rural-urban, gender wise differential varied in the study area.

The present study is based on Secondary source data. The study was conducted taluk wise in Bidar district. Secondary source of information collected from District Census Hand Book of Bidar District. The comparisons are summarized here for two period’s i.e. 2001 and 2011. The collected information has been compiled and put in the form of maps, graphs and tables for further analysis. The base Maps are prepared using Arc GIS software techniques. Data is analyzed though simple quantitative techniques like percentage.

Bidar District is a top of hill city located on the Deccan Plateau, in the north-eastern part of Karnataka State in India. Bidar District lies between 17⁰ to 35¹ N to 18⁰ to 25¹ N Latitude and from 76⁰ to 42¹ E to 77⁰ to 39¹ E Longitudes. The District covering an area of 5448 sq.km and accounts for 2.84% of the state’s total geographical area. It’s bordered by Nanded and Osmanabad District of Maharashtra state on the Northern side, south by Gulbarga District of Karnataka state, Latur and Osmanabad Districts of Maharashtra state, on the western side and Nizamabad and Medak districts of Andhra Pradesh State on the eastern side. Totally, Bidar District consists of five taluks, such as, Aurad, Basavakalyan, Bhalki, Bidar and Humnabad with 30 hoblies, 175 Grama Panchayaths, 7 towns 6 Municipalities and Bidar being the head quarters of the district. District consists of 621 villages, out of which 599 inhabited and 22 uninhabited villages. As per 2011 census, the population of the Bidar district is 1,703,300 of which male and female were 870,665 and 832,635 respectively.

The Bidar District consists of five taluks, such as, Aurad, Basavakalyan, Bhalki, Bidar and Humnabad with 30 hoblies, 175 Grama Panchayaths, 7 towns 6 Municipalities and Bidar being the head quarters of the district. Table 1 shows the Taluk wise Distribution of Literates and Literacy rate in percentage and growth Rate of Literacy in Bidar district. According to Census 2011 the literacy rate of Bidar district has increased from 60.94 % in 2001 to 70.51% in 2011 with an improvement of 9.57 %. Data also reveals that among the taluks, the highest literacy rate is 74.51% in Bidar Taluk, followed by Bhalki taluk is 71.56%. Whereas, Medium literacy rate found in Basavakalyan and Humnabad taluk with 68.98% and 68.15% respectively. The lowest literacy rate is found in Aurad Taluk with 67.34%.

Figure 2 Figure 3

Gender wise Disparity in Literacy Rate

The research reported in this paper was supported by University Grants Commission from the Post-Doctoral Fellowship for Women (UGC-PDFWM), New Delhi.