Bengal neglected its voters' priorities: Survey

Voters' priorities in West Bengal have largely been "neglected by the government in power" said a survey released on Friday, as responders rated the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool's performance on three counts as "below average" on three key issues -- employment opportunities, agriculture loan availability and higher price realisation of farm products.

The West Bengal Survey 2018 showed that voters rated the performance of the state government as 2.16 on a scale of 5 for better employment opportunities, 2.26 on agriculture loan availability and 2.22 on higher price realisation for farm products.

"The performance of the state government on all the three priorities were rated as below average," said Ujjaini Halim, State Coordinator, West Bengal Election Watch, a civil society initiative.

The survey covered approximately 21,000 respondents across all 42 parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal and provided an analysis of the 10 most important governance issues as rated by the voters of the state, out of 31 listed in an questionnaire.

While rural voters rated the state government's performance as "below average" on agriculture loan availability, higher price realisation for farm products and agriculture subsidy for seeds or fertilisers.

The urban voters termed employment opportunities, water and air pollution and traffic congestion, as below average.

The survey also pointed that the government has performed "poorly" in providing better public transport and curbing noise pollution in urban West Bengal and also in providing better employment opportunities and availability of water for agriculture in rural Bengal.

"Voters' priorities in West Bengal have largely been neglected by the government in power. This is quite clear from the fact that the government has performed poorly on almost all governance issues, with exception of average performance on matters such as empowerment of women and security and electricity of domestic use," the survey added.

--IANS

bdc/in