Which Indian State has the highest literacy rate as per the 2023 census ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Mizoram. Begin by noticing that the census the stem names does not exist. India's last census was the fifteenth, in 2011; the one due in 2021 was postponed and the sixteenth is only now being taken, with house-listing that began on 1 April 2026 and population enumeration set for February 2027. So 'the 2023 census' can only mean the most recent official literacy estimate of 2023 vintage, and that is the Periodic Labour Force Survey. The NSSO's Annual Report on the PLFS for July 2023 to June 2024, released on 23 September 2024, gives literacy for persons aged seven and above, rural and urban combined, as: Mizoram 98.2, Lakshadweep 97.3, Nagaland 95.7, Kerala 95.3, Goa 93.6, Himachal Pradesh 88.8, all-India 80.9. Mizoram is first in the country and first among the four offered. The earlier National Statistical Commission survey of 2017-18 says the same thing more emphatically — Mizoram 99.01 against Kerala 96.2. And there is a strong internal clue in the paper itself: the printed order, Mizoram then Kerala then Goa then Himachal Pradesh, is exactly the descending order on both of those datasets, and is not the Census 2011 order, which runs Kerala 94.00, Mizoram 91.33, Goa 88.70, Himachal Pradesh 82.80. A setter who lifted the top of a recent table and typed it straight down the option list produces the sequence that is printed. That is why our derivation names Mizoram, while recording honestly that a setter working from an older book would have keyed Kerala.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The near-miss, and the most-taught fact in Indian general knowledge — but it belongs to Census 2011, where Kerala led at 94.00 per cent with Mizoram second at 91.33. On both post-2011 datasets the order reverses: Kerala is 96.2 against Mizoram's 99.01 in 2017-18, and 95.3 against 98.2 in the PLFS of 2023-24, where Kerala is in fact fourth in the country behind Mizoram, Lakshadweep and Nagaland. It remains the leading large state, which is a different claim.  (c) Third of these four on every dataset without exception — 88.70 per cent in Census 2011, 87.4 in 2017-18 and 93.6 in the PLFS of 2023-24. Goa's very high per-capita income and small, heavily urban population make it a plausible-looking guess, and it has since been declared a fully literate state, but it has never been first in the country on any published literacy series.  (d) The lowest of the four on all three datasets — 82.80 per cent in Census 2011, 86.6 in 2017-18 and 88.8 in the PLFS of 2023-24, which is below the figure Goa recorded fifteen years earlier. Himachal Pradesh is genuinely a strong performer among the northern states and is often cited for its school system, but it is not close to the national top.

Concept: Since Census 2011 India has had no census, so every literacy figure quoted after that year comes from a sample survey rather than a complete enumeration, and the two are not interchangeable. A census counts everybody; a survey estimates from a sample and carries sampling error, which is why survey-based state figures can move by several points between rounds in a way census figures never do. The two survey sources that matter are the National Sample Survey's 75th round on household consumption of education, covering July 2017 to June 2018, and the annual Periodic Labour Force Survey, which the NSSO has run since 2017-18 and which publishes a literacy table as an appendix to its labour report. Both define literacy the way the census does — the ability to read and write with understanding in any language, measured for persons aged seven and above — so the series are comparable in definition even though they differ in method. A separate strand is administrative: under the ULLAS or Nav Bharat Saksharta Karyakram scheme a state is certified 'fully literate' on reaching 95 per cent, and Mizoram was the first to be so declared, in May 2025 — after this paper was sat, so it cannot have been the setter's source, but it is the cleanest way to remember which state is now first.

State PCS 2025 Q91 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q91 — Geography PYQ with Answer