Ramechhap, September 24

Padam Bahadur Tamang of Kaule in Manthali Municipality, Ramechhap, cannot read or write or put his signature on paper. He is pretty much into the thumb-impression. Quite surprisingly, his name figures in the names of literate persons in the district.

Ramechhap was declared fully literate district two years ago after ‘attaining’ the mark of 96.4 per cent literate population, but people like Tamang, who are illiterate till date, and opt for impressing thumb-print on paper during municipal discussion or meeting is making a mockery of the ‘fully literate’ title given to the district.

To stamp out illiteracy, the government had run a campaign by arranging classes for illiterate people at schools. Clearly not all schools ran those classes effectively or took the campaign seriously, which is now evident from the thumb-print impressions seen on municipal papers.

On his part, Sunapati Rural Municipality Chair Dhawa Lama refused to admit that there still were illiterate people in the municipality. “All the people who put their thumb impression on attendance sheet during a meeting or discussion are not illiterate. For those who have just learnt to write, they don’t bother to put their signatures as impressing thumb-print saves time for them,” he said.

“Regarding why there are more thumb impressions than signatures in meeting minutes, it might have to do with the fact that most of those who attend such meetings are old people with most of the youth in the district gone abroad,” he added.