How many people can actually read/write in Rural India?

Recently I was asked about the data (in each state) on educated population in rural India. Although government releases data about literacy rates, but I don't believe that this actually represents the people who can read and write. Say for example, consider the census of 2001. Download this pdf file, in order to get the detailed data on education in India. Here you find that both higher secondary pass-outs and graduates are 37 million. Similarly you find that 'below primary school' educated are lesser than 'upper primary educated'. Anyone with common sense predicts that number of higher secondary pass-outs should be much higher than graduates (simply because almost all graduates are HS pass-outs and moreover, drop-out rates are very high in India). Anyway let us move ahead.

As there is no single source for such authentic data, I am attempting to collate from several sources in order to get a feel for media companies. The following data is a "rough" estimation from various sources (Ministry of Education, NSSO, Pratham, etc).

• More than 70% of the population fall under rural India
  
• At least 40 million people of rural India can read/write in their local language (females : 30%)
  
• At least 18 million people of rural India do have familiarity with English, minor arithmetic
• 12 million rural population can be considered for formal employment considering their interest in higher education (certificate, diploma, vocational training, industrial training, degree, etc)
• 4 Million rural population (Females: 15%) can directly be trained for professional employment

Notes: Based on Pratham's observations, here I assume that the people who completes their school education can read/write in their local language. Similarly who completes high school education successfully should be familiar with English/arthmetic. Graduates can be trained for employment.

If you have any authentic sources in this regard, do let me know.

Some numbers on SME activity, employment in India

According to fifth economic census:

As of 2005, about 26 million rural enterprises employed 51 million people, whereas about 16 million urban enterprises employed 49 million.

However, this trend seems to be changing, with rural employment in enterprises (engaged in activity other than agriculture) growing at an annual rate of 3.3 per cent between 1998 and 2005, as against 1.7 per cent in the case of urban enterprises. A change in composition in favor of the former could arrest the shift of populations to cities. A growth rate of 3-4 per cent in rural enterprise employment is achieved even if agriculture sector performs poorly. Therefore, enterprises do not depend on surplus farm income. They might have come up to cope with falling agriculture incomes. Nevertheless, healthy farm sector growth helps; a 2-3 per cent growth in agriculture output is likely to lead to a growth rate of rural employment of 5 per cent or more.

Co-operative Credit Organisations and some numbers

The cooperative credit structure consisting of over 1,25,605 outlets purveys more than 62 per cent to total agri-rural credit. While a network of 66,573 commercial banks and 14,505 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) along with 81,078 branches, these put together account for only 38 per cent of rural credit. There are 30 State Cooperative banks with 953 branches and 368 District-level Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) with 12,858 branches carrying a network of 1,08,779 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS).

Some Numbers on Rural India

Rural India accounts for more than 50% of the GDP and out of total 62.97 million households, having income more than 5 lakhs pa, nearly 28.68 million households (46%) live in Rural India. The rural market is projected to be bigger in India than the urban market for fast moving consumer goods, with an annual size of Rs 48000 crore ($12 billion) in 2004 and growing.

Rural consumption expenditure is accounted for around 60 per cent, or Rs 9,13,500 crore ($228 billion), of the country's total consumption expenditure.

Rural India's market size in 2020 : $ 500 billion

Mckinsey recently surveyed rural India for Bharat Nirman project and concluded that rural India's market size in 2020 would be US $ 500 billion. According to survey: Of the 593 rural districts in India, 67 were classified as urban cousins, 118 close to rural economic centers, around 160 with basic minimum infrastructure and 248 are deprived.