TMC government has failed on key issues: ADR

The Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal has failed to meet top basic priorities of voters and performed "below average" on issues of employment, agriculture loan and farm product price, says a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Released on Friday, the West Bengal survey 2018 found that better employment opportunities, agricultural loan availability and higher price realization for farm products were the top three concerns for voters in the state and the performance of the Mamata Banerjee government was "below average" on all three.

On a scale of 5, the state government scored 2.16 on better employment opportunities, 2.26 on agricultural loan availability, 2.22 on higher price realization for farm products, the report by the election watchdog said.

In rural areas, the top voter priorities were agriculture loan availability, higher price realization for farm products, and agriculture subsidy for seeds and fertilisers, and the government's performance was rated as "below average".

The government performance on rural voter priorities were 2.26 on agriculture loan availability, 2.22 on higher price realization for farm products, and 2.18 on agriculture subsidy for seeds and fertilisers.

In addition, the government has performed "poorly" in providing better employment opportunities (2.09) and availability of water for agriculture (2.12) in rural West Bengal, the report said.

The ADR survey, conducted between October 2018 and December 2018, also revealed that for urban voters, the top priorities were better employment opportunities, water and air pollution, and traffic congestion, and the performance of the government was "below average" with score noted 2.35, 2.92 and 2.32 respectively on the three.

"In addition, the government has performed "poorly" in providing better public transport (2.36) and noise pollution (2.47) in urban West Bengal," the report added.

--IANS

rak/prs