1 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections May 2016: What Voters want and how they rate Government Performance A survey of over 16,000 respondents was done in every constituency of Tamil Nadu ending in February 2016. This is the largest survey done so far in the State. The purpose of the survey is to find out what voters really want from the Government and how they rate the performance on the issues that are important to them. In later Press releases we will send constituency wise information. The survey was done by the Association for Democratic reforms (ADR), a non-political organization that works all over India to help improve elections and democracy. Rural Voter Priorities Rural voters still form the bulk of people in the State. When asked for their top three priorities, they said that Agriculture Loans, Employment and Electricity for agriculture were the top priorities. The Table below gives the percentage of people who said that the issue was one of the top three priorities for them. So 24.75% of voters said that Agriculture Loan Availability was one of the top three priorities for them, 22.88% of voters said that for Better Employment Opportunities, and 20.72% for electricity for agriculture. Clearly they show that issues of agriculture and employment are the top priorities for them. About 68% of voters gave one of these three as their top priority. Rural Priorities Issue % voters Agriculture loan availability 24.75% Better employment opportunities 22.88% Electricity for agriculture 20.72% Better roads 18.49% Water river lake pollution 17.42% Availability of water for agriculture 16.84% Better public transport 16.68% Agriculture subsidy for seeds & fertilisers 16.40% Better hospital/Primary health care centres 15.92% Roads and transport, polluted water sources, water for agriculture, agriculture inputs like seeds and fertilizers, along with Health facilities were 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, law and order were not top priorities. Rural Performance Rating of Government Among the worst rated performance was on Agriculture Loan Availability and Better Employment Opportunities. These unfortunately are among the top 3 priorities for the people. The other issue in the top three priorities, namely Electricity for Agriculture also did poorly according to voters. There were a total of 31 issues for which they gave priorities and then rated Government’s performance. Thus for the top three priorities, Agriculture Loan Availability performance was ranked 27 th out of 31,
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Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections May 2016:
What Voters want and how they rate Government Performance
A survey of over 16,000 respondents was done in every constituency of Tamil Nadu ending in
February 2016. This is the largest survey done so far in the State. The purpose of the survey is to find
out what voters really want from the Government and how they rate the performance on the issues
that are important to them. In later Press releases we will send constituency wise information. The
survey was done by the Association for Democratic reforms (ADR), a non-political organization that
works all over India to help improve elections and democracy.
Rural Voter Priorities
Rural voters still form the bulk of people in the State. When asked for their top three priorities, they
said that Agriculture Loans, Employment and Electricity for agriculture were the top priorities. The
Table below gives the percentage of people who said that the issue was one of the top three priorities
for them. So 24.75% of voters said that Agriculture Loan Availability was one of the top three
priorities for them, 22.88% of voters said that for Better Employment Opportunities, and 20.72% for
electricity for agriculture. Clearly they show that issues of agriculture and employment are the top
priorities for them. About 68% of voters gave one of these three as their top priority.
Rural Priorities
Issue % voters
Agriculture loan availability 24.75%
Better employment opportunities 22.88%
Electricity for agriculture 20.72%
Better roads 18.49%
Water river lake pollution 17.42%
Availability of water for agriculture 16.84%
Better public transport 16.68%
Agriculture subsidy for seeds & fertilisers 16.40%
Better hospital/Primary health care centres 15.92%
Roads and transport, polluted water sources, water for agriculture, agriculture inputs like seeds and
fertilizers, along with Health facilities were 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, law and order were not top priorities.
Rural Performance Rating of Government
Among the worst rated performance was on Agriculture Loan Availability and Better Employment
Opportunities. These unfortunately are among the top 3 priorities for the people. The other issue in
the top three priorities, namely Electricity for Agriculture also did poorly according to voters. There
were a total of 31 issues for which they gave priorities and then rated Government’s performance.
Thus for the top three priorities, Agriculture Loan Availability performance was ranked 27th out of 31,
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Better Employment Opportunities 26th, and Electricity for Agriculture 20th. So high priority issues for
voters had very bad performance.
Voters were also asked to pick just 2 issues on which they rated the Government as Good, another two
issues on which they rated the Government as Average and another 2 on which they rated the
Government as Bad. The Table below shows the percent of voters who first chose each issue and then
rated it. So Agriculture Loan Availability was chosen by 22.79% of voters as one of the two issues on
which they wanted to rate the Government. The Table also shows how the Government’s performance
on the Top Priorities was rated. The maximum possible score was 5, and the actual scores ranged
from 2.56 to 3.14 for the top priorities.
Rural Performance on Top Priorities
Score
Rank out
of 31 items % age Voters
Agriculture loan availability 2.56 27 22.79%
Better employment opportunities 2.61 26 21.17%
Water river lake pollution 2.73 22 17.06%
Electricity for agriculture 2.85 20 16.58%
Better public transport 2.77 21 13.51%
Better roads 2.72 23 12.45%
Better hospital/Primary health care centres 3.08 12 18.84%
Availability of water for agriculture 3.10 10 14.61%
Sand and stone quarrying/mining 3.14 9 14.41%
Agriculture subsidy for seeds & fertilisers 2.89 19 12.48%
There were some priority issues where the Government performance was relatively good. These were
Hospitals and PHCs, Water for Agriculture and Sand Stone quarrying and mining. The last may be an
environmental hazard but people may have supported it due to the employment generated.
The voters rated Government performance high on issues that were not important to them. These
included Terrorism and Strong Military. However only 2.65% and 1.16% rated these issues as
Important.
Urban Voter Priorities
Urban Voters had different priorities. Employment was the highest priority for them, whereas for rural
voters it was the number 2 priority. Urban voters also said Noise Pollution and the Drinking Water
were the other two priorities. In the next category were Health Care, Roads and Traffic Congestion.
Every voter in Tamil Nadu named one of these 6 issues below as important.
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Urban Priorities
Issue % voters
Better employment opportunities 23.59%
Noise pollution 21.82%
Drinking water 20.69%
Better hospital/Primary health care centres 18.89%
Better roads 17.58%
Traffic congestion 17.34%
These were followed closely by water and air pollution, public transport, law and order and electricity
for domestic use.
Urban Performance Rating of Government
The top urban priorities of Employment, Noise Pollution and Drinking Water were ranked 19th, 31st
and 23rd out of 31 issues in terms of performance. Thus Noise Pollution, one of the top priorities for
voters had the worst performance.
For the next level of priorities, Traffic Congestion was ranked 30th in terms of performance, Health
Care was ranked 18th and Roads at 24th. Once again the top priorities for voters had the worst
performance as for rural voters.
Row Labels Score
Rank out
of 31 items % of voters
Better employment opportunities 2.99 19 14.94%
Traffic congestion 1.94 30 7.17%
Noise pollution 1.83 31 5.68%
Better hospital/Primary health care centres 3.03 18 12.90%
Better roads 2.81 24 9.29%
Water and Air pollution 2.23 28 4.97%
Better public transport 3.09 13 9.60%
Drinking water 2.83 23 6.41%
The best performance was on Terrorism, Strong Military and Ration on the PDS system. However the
percent of respondents who chose these issues was low at 5.5%, 4% and 3.24%.
Conclusions
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. The full list of priorities and performance for Rural and Urban Voters is given in the
Appendices.
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Appendix 1: Rural Priorities
Rural Priorities
Issue % Voters
1 Agriculture loan availability 24.75%
2 Better employment opportunities 22.88%
3 Electricity for agriculture 20.72%
4 Better roads 18.49%
5 Water river take pollution 17.42%
6 Availability of water for agriculture 16.84%
7 Better public transport 16.68%
8 Agriculture subsidy for seeds & fertilisers 16.40%
9 Better hospital/Primary health care centres 15.92%
10 Sand and stone quarrying/mining 12.67%
11 Higher price realization for farm products 12.36%
12 Drinking water 11.62%
13 Better law and order/Policing 10.80%
14 Encroachment of public land lakes etc. 9.56%
15 School education 8.89%
16 Eradication of corruption 8.65%
17 Empowerment of women and security 8.13%
18 Subsidised food distribution/ration 8.00%
19 Electricity for domestic use 7.95%
20 Lower food prices for consumers 7.12%
21 Reservation for jobs and education 5.58%
22 Better garbage clearance 4.88%
23 Training for jobs 4.28%
24 others (Specify) 3.52%
25 Terrorism 2.65%
26 Strong Defence/Military 1.16%
27 Traffic congestion 0.63%
28 Water and Air pollution 0.55%
29 Mining/Quarrying 0.44%
30 Facility for cyclists and pedestrians on roads 0.40%
31 Noise pollution 0.38%
Some of the Issues are clearly urban and as can be seen the number of respondents is very low.
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Appendix 2: Rural Performance
S No Issue Score
Rank out
of 31 items % of Voters
1 Agriculture loan availability 2.56 27 22.79%
2 Better employment opportunities 2.61 26 21.17%
3 Water river lake pollution 2.73 22 17.06%
4 Electricity for agriculture 2.85 20 16.58%
5 Better public transport 2.77 21 13.51%
6 Better roads 2.72 23 12.45%
7 Better hospital/Primary health care centres 3.08 12 18.84%
8 Availability of water for agriculture 3.10 10 14.61%
9 Sand and stone quarrying/mining 3.14 9 14.41%
10 Agriculture subsidy for seeds & fertilisers 2.89 19 12.48%
11 Higher price realization for farm products 3.04 13 13.60%
12 Better law and order/Policing 3.00 16 13.77%
13 Drinking water 2.99 17 10.60%
14 Eradication of corruption 3.02 15 7.26%
15 School education 3.19 7 7.71%
16 Encroachment of public land lakes etc. 2.66 24 4.93%