LUDHIANA, JAN 31: Karnail Kaur, 70, of Thrike village was one of those who had been taught to write her name during the literacy campaign launched in May 1995. Today she uses a thumb impression whenever her signature is required.Kulwant Kaur, 35, resident of Lalto Khurd village who had also been enrolled in the classes, says that though she now knows how to write her name this still does not help her check her son's report card or write her son or husband's name. ``By learning to write one's own name, does one become literate ?'' she asks.This at the end of the first phase of adult literacy campaign on which Rs 94 lakh has already been spent. The campaign started in Ludhiana with much fanfare in the middle of 1995. The district was divided into 105 areas and 88,739, 51,891 of them female, `learners' were enrolled at a total of 11,051 literacy centres.Malkiat Singh, joint secretary, Ludhiana Literacy Campaign, said that the main aim of the campaign was to ensure that illiterates could read as well as count so that they could at least maintain their domestic accounts.``The aim was to acquaint these people with the reasons for their poverty as well as other social problems so that they could unite together to fight against these odds,'' he added.Even as officials claim that they have achieved at least 51.85 per cent of those who were enrolled passing the evaluation, others dismiss the claim. Manjeet Singh, a resident of village Jhande, about 25 km from Ludhiana, said that some of these people did come to distribute books but hardly any classes were ever held in his village and the books went unread. Under this scheme, nearly 3.5 lakh primers and nearly 43 thousand guides were distributed.The books have been a waste of resources as classes never started or were held for a few days. Sharanjeet Kaur, a Sakharta Sewak (voluntary teacher) in village Latto Kalan said that she started taking class but villagers stopped attending after a few days. Virmi, a resident of the village endorsing her statement said that except for one centre, the others stopped conducting classes after a week.Thakar Singh, a resident of the same village at the age of 80 still wishes to learn Punjabi, ``I know only Urdu but I wish to learn Punjabi so that I can read the Gurbani.'' He was unaware of the fact that literacy classes were ever conducted in the village.Analysing the reasons for the failure of the scheme, Kulwant Singh ex-sarpanch of Latto Kalan said that this scheme could not be popularised due to lack of initial proper planning. Bhagwant Kaur, one of ex-Sakharta Sewaks, added that when she started conducting classes she was given assurance that she would be given payment of Rs 500 after serving for two months. ``I served for nearly a year and half but authorities have not paid me even a paisa'' she said and added that when she was not paid or given any government job after serving for such a long time, she stopped taking classes.ADC Sarbjeet Singh who heads the campaign in the district said that since most of the campaign had been completed before he took over, he would not be able to comment about what had transpired earlier. He, however, said that the campaign had received an enthusiastic response in many of the more remote areas of the district. He also added that the Sakharta Sewaks were voluntary workers and somebody must have misled them when they were assured remuneration for the task.
