52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST isolation from the socio-economic structure. This is the point of departure of the present study. Research evidence in the field shows that facilities of education are available within a radius of one kilometre from the village but still 64 per cent of people are illiterate. Scope of the Study In the present study, it is proposed to investigate patterns of development of literacy, education and socio-economic correlates in rural areas of Rajasthan. The study covers 21 selected villages of Jaipur district. The villages were selected from four blocks, namely, Amber, Bassi, Jamwa-Ramgarh and Sanganer. The exercise was carried out at two levels: (1) An attempt was made to review rural literacy, and to construct a broad socio-economic profile of the spread of education; (2) variations with regard to the utilisation of educational facilities by different segments of population across the village were obtained. Jaipur is one of the developed districts in Rajasthan and approximately 400 units are engaged in the production of various goods. Apart from small-scale industries, there is also a considerable presence of engineering, electrical, metal and related industries. The production processes of all these industries require educated workers in the respective trades. In Jaipur, 37.09 per cent of workers arc working in industries, trade and commerce. A large number of workers are educated upto a certain level. Among them, 23.73 per cent are literate and working in various industries. The impact of socio-economic development has been trickling down towards the hinterland of Jaipur. Amber, Bassi, Jamwa-Ramgarh and Sanganer, the four blocks chosen, are the growing centres of small-scale industries, particularly toy making, hand-made paper, block-making, printing, dyeing, stone crushing, leather, etc. A large part of the cultivated area is under tube-well irrigation and devoted to the cultivation of commercial crops—tobacco, chillies, groundnut, cotton—and wheat. Commercialisation in agriculture has generated new types of economic activities like oil-crushing, calico printing, repairing workshops for agricultural implements, etc. This has therefore brought prosperity to a section of the peasantry and increased the purchasing power for consumer goods, leading to a further enhancement of small-scale industries in the region, employment opportunities, earning capacity and the level of education. Some salient facts are given in Table I, which is self-explanatory. An interesting point which emerges from the table, despite the aggregative nature of the data, is the inverse relationship between the rate of literacy and the percentage of scheduled caste/scheduled tribe (SC/ST) population. For instance Basst and Jamwa-Ramgarh have lower literacy (13 per cent) and a higher percentage of SC/ST population (42 to 50 per cent).