Distributional Pattern and Literacy Status of Katakari Tribes in Raigad District of Maharashtra: A Geographical Perspective

The Katakari are a tribal group of indigenous hunter gatherers who live in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Their ongoing survival is threatened by years of systemic exploitation, racial prejudice, abject poverty and loss of their traditional lands. The Katakari people are an Indian Hindu community mostly belonging to the state of Maharashtra. They have been categorized as a scheduled tribe. Other names and spellings include Katakari, Kothari and kathodia they are bilingual speaking the Katakari language in the dialect and Marathi language as regular for other than Katakari. Literacy is one of the important indices of development of any community in any region. But for the backward communities especially for tribals it is a stepping stone for their development, without which the progress is just impossible. Therefore the educational and literacy level of the Katakari community is concern it should be assess and find out the ground reality. As per 2001 census the literacy rate of the district was 45.05 percent, it slightly lower than the other district because these area having tribal people. The maximum literacy rate 63.97 percent was shown in the Murud Tahsil and the minimum was 25.07 in Managaon Tahsil these Tahsil represent very low literacy rate because these area tribal population living and average literacy rate of district about 44.68 percent. The male average literacy of sample village is more than 27 percent (27.2%), and average gender gap is about 5.73 percent. While female average literacy depicted 21.42 percent. Further the educational attainment and enrollment was also very average as per Katakari are concern.