Employment on top of rural voters' mind, irrigation water next in the list

The Association of Democratic Reforms conducted a survey on what people from various sections of society want; and how they judge the government's performance

The graph below highlights five voter priorities out of 26 on governance issues in rural India. For 44.21 per cent rural voters, better employment opportunities were priority. Given the rural context, the next five were are all related to agriculture:

Availability of water for agriculture (40.62%), agricultural loan availability (39.42%), higher price realisation for farm products (39.09%), agriculture subsidy for seeds/fertilisers (38.56%) and electricity for agriculture (36.62%). Issues like encroachment on public land and lakes (1.48%), strong defence/military (3.02%) and terrorism (3.34%) are low on rural voters’ priorities.

On all governance issues, rural voters gave a below average rating to the government, which ranges between 1.02 and 2.67 on a scale of 5. The government’s best-rated performance was on better public transport while its worst-rated performance was on training for jobs.  On the issue of better employment opportunities, the government performance was ranked 11th, while that for availability of water for agriculture, agri loan availability, it was 10th and 12th, respectively.