As many as 31 priorities but voters rate Governments’ work ‘below average’

Better employment opportunities is the top-most priority of voters across the country and voters find policies and performance of Governments in creating employment ‘below average’. This is the finding of third survey of voters conducted by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The survey, released on Monday, records the voters’ priorities and their perception of the Government’s performance. As many as 2.7 lakh respondents in 534 Lok Sabha constituencies recorded their views. And the top three concerns voiced by them converged on better employment, better healthcare and better drinking water supply.

In a statement ADR pointed out that the survey focuses on the ‘end goal’ of elections , which is good governance. ADR had conducted the first survey in 2014 and the second survey in 2017. For 51.60% of urban voters, the survey found, ‘Better Employment Opportunities’ was the highest priority, followed by Better Hospitals/Primary Healthcare Centers (39.41%) and Traffic Congestion (37.17%), followed by Drinking Water (35.03%), Better Roads (34.91%) and Water and Air Pollution (34.14%).

“Surprisingly, despite the scarcity of land in urban areas, encroachment of land, lakes etc. was not a priority for urban voters as it was ranked lowest at 1.26%, followed by Terrorism (4.10%), and a strong Defence/Military (5.18%),” the survey notes.

On none of the 31 priorities listed by the voters across the country were Governments’ performance rated as average or ‘above average’.

On a scale of 1 to 5, the average being 3, the Governments’ performance have been rated 2.15 for employment, 2.35 for better healthcare and 2.52 per cent for drinking water.

Significantly, voters found the performance of Governments in preventing encroachment of public land and lakes, terrorism, illegal mining and corruption as even worse.

Surprisingly or not so surprisingly, voters also rate the performance in building a strong defence and training programmes as poor.

The state governments of Telangana in relation to public transport, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry in relation to roads and Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in relation to better hospitals seem to have exceeded the voters’ expectations.

While Chandigarh surprisingly fails to meet voters’ expectations and the Union Territory administered by the Union Government fares poorly in the survey, smaller union territories like Daman Diu, Puducherry and Goa found voters’ approval for better employment opportunities, roads and lower food prices respectively.

“The significance of Better Hospitals/Primary Healthcare Centres as voter’s second highest priority has increased from 25% in 2017 to 35% in 2018. At the same time, the performance of the government on this issue declined from 3.36 to 2.35,” the survey notes.

Ironically, male voters have given the highest ratings (2.59) to the Government on the issue of Empowerment of Women and Security! Though this still is below average rating. And the women voters rated the governments’ efforts as poorer.

Another important finding is that school education is rated by voters as one of the highest priorities (ranked 13th) by both Male and Female voters. But the Government’s performance is rated by both males ( 1.63 on a scale of 1 to 5) and females ( 1.74) as abysmal.