Panaji: Though Goa has a healthy 82.3 percent literacy rate, nearly one-fourth of the government employees in the state have not cleared their Class 10 exams, according to an official report.

The report compiled by the state's planning, statistics and evaluation department says that 11,775 of the 47,718 government employees, or 24.67 percent, have not even cleared their Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination.

"The data collected has been prepared separately in government departments, grant-in-aid institutions and state public sector undertakings for analytical purposes," Anand Sherkhane, director of the planning, statistics and evaluation department, has said in the foreword to the report.

The report covers all the government employees working with the 76 departments, 13 public sector undertakings and 16 grant-in-aid institutions.

The report significantly points out that women, who form 29 percent of the total employees, outnumber men in several departments.

School education department employs 2,571 women, compared to 1,595 men. The health services department has 1,558 women on its rolls as against 1,306 men.

The state police department has the highest number of government servants on its rolls - 4,884 personnel.

The government employees' census survey also indicates a noticeable rise in their numbers. The last survey compiled in 2005 had recorded 43,369 government servants, showing a 3.8 percent increase in bureaucratic ranks since then. IANS