Agartala: The Tripura government has decided to introduce a Home-Based Education Programme (HBEP) for the disabled children, who are unable to attend schools, an official said here on Thursday.

"The HBEP would be launched as part of the government programme to bring all children (aged 6 to 14 years) in learning process," Banamali Sinha, principal secretary education, told reporters.

"We cannot include the differently-abled children in normal educational set-up, because the government has not yet prepared the schools with adequate infrastructure and trained teachers to take special care of those otherwise-abled children."

The Tripura government has appointed some Education Volunteers (EV) to serve the educational needs of these hapless Children With Special Needs (CWSN) at their homes from the next academic session beginning from January next year.

"Initially, 171 differently-abled children have been identified in different parts of the northeastern state to provide this home based education," the principal secretary said.

According to the 2001 census, Tripura has around 60,000 people with various physical deformities and a considerable number of them are under 15 years old.

Meanwhile, according to Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, the northeastern state would be declared fully literate in September next year.

"On the occasion of World Literacy Day (Sep 8) next year, Tripura will be declared an entirely literate state. The final phase of all out efforts to achieve this goal has begun," Sarkar told a meeting of the state literacy mission authority here earlier this month.

According to the 2001 census, Tripura was the 12th most literate state in India with 73.66 percent literacy and the second most literate state in northeast region after Mizoram, where the literacy rate was 88.49 percent.

According to a study by the Kolkata-based Indian Statistical Institute in 2006, the literacy rate in Tripura had risen to 80.14 percent. IANS