# Adult literacy rate in India

Adult literacy rate in India was 78.2% in 2024. Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

- Indicator id: `literacy_rate_adult`
- Place id: `in`
- Unit: %
- Definition: People aged 15 and over who can both read and write, with understanding, a short simple statement about their everyday life, as a percentage of the population aged 15 and over. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
- Note: UIS figures from censuses, household surveys and UIS model estimates. Most high-income countries stopped measuring literacy decades ago, so they have no value; a missing value is not a rate of 0 or 100. Countries report in different years, so a ranking for one year covers only some countries.
- Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Literacy rate, adult total, % of people ages 15 and above (SE.ADT.LITR.ZS) (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS), via World Bank, World Development Indicators (https://data.worldbank.org)
- Publisher page: https://invokely.ai/en/publishers/unesco-institute-for-statistics
- Retrieved: 2026-10-12
- License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (commercial and non-commercial reuse, attribution required, adaptations shared under the same licence, no implied UIS endorsement)
- Citation: Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Literacy rate, adult total, % of people ages 15 and above (SE.ADT.LITR.ZS). Retrieved through World Bank World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS. Retrieved 2026-10-12. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. UIS does not endorse Invokely or this use of the data.
- Web page: https://invokely.ai/en/adult-literacy-rate/india
- API: https://invokely.ai/api/v1/series?indicator=literacy_rate_adult&place=in

| Period | % |
|---|---:|
| 2024 | 78.2 |
| 2023 | 81.7 |
| 2022 | 76.3 |
| 2021 | 76.1 |
| 2020 | 75.5 |
| 2019 | 74.9 |
| 2018 | 73.7 |
| 2012 | 69.8 |
| 2011 | 69.3 |
| 2010 | 68.3 |
| 2006 | 62.8 |
| 2001 | 61 |
| 1991 | 48.2 |
| 1981 | 40.8 |