Govt performance bad in priority issues in Tamil Nadu: ADR survey

Traffic congestion, water, air and noise pollution were identified as the top priority issues

While the voters in Tamil Nadu have said that traffic congestion, water and air pollution and noise pollution as their top issues to be addressed by the state government as performance in these priority issues were bad, says Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) survey. Interestingly, corruption and reservation for jobs were noted as issues, which are not priorities among the political parties.

According to a survey conducted by the ADR, a non-political organisation that works all over India related to the elections and democracy, 48 per cent of the voters said traffic congession as one of their top three priorities, which need the government's intervention. The organisation has ranked the votes on rural and urban basis

Out of the total sample size of 16,000 respondents, 34.84 per cent believes that water and air pollution is one of the top priorities, while 33.73 per cent think that noise pollution is one of the top priorities for the government to address. About 83 per cent of voters gave one of these three as their top priority.

Traffic congesion and pollution were the areas where the government had one of the worst performance, though they are among the top priorities for the people, said ADR.

"For the top three priorities, traffic congestion was ranked 24 and Noise Pollution was ranked 21 out of 25, Better Employment Opportunities 12, and Drinking Water 23. So high priority issues for voters had very bad performance," said a release issued by the organisation.

"If voters expect good performance from the government, they are likely to be disappointed. In democracy as played out today, one party has to merely defeat the other party, not necessarily deliver good governance. To win they seem to resort to freebies for voters rather than deliver good governance," it added.

Better employment opportunities (21.97 per cent voters), lower food prices (20.85 per cent voters) and facility for cyclists and pedestrians (17.95 per cent), training for jobs (12.87 per cent), empowerment of women and security (11.32 per cent), mining and quarrying (10.52 per ecnt) and better law and order (10.46 per cent) were also among the top priorities.

It is also interesting to note what issues were not priorities for them. For instance reservation for jobs, education, terrorism, strong military, corruption, were not top priorities, it added.

Better hospital or primary healthcare centers has been ranked as 17 in terms of government's performance on priorities, with drinking water was ranked as 23 and better employment opportunities as 12.

The survey took a total of 25 issues on which the voters gave their priorities and rated government's performance, said the release.