A survey conducted by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has found that voters from 534 parliamentary constituencies rated the incumbent NDA government’s performance as ‘below average’ on the top 10 governance issues. Nearly 47% of those surveyed picked ‘better employment opportunities’ as the top governance priority item among 31 issues presented to them.

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In a separate survey done by Local Circles, an organisation that uses social media for the exercise, unemployment emerged as the primary issue among 37,000 respondents spread over 260-odd districts. To ensure more jobs were available, nearly 60% of participants said the next government should cut down on bureaucratic inefficiencies and corruption for ease of doing business, and 16% said it should attract significant FDI and domestic investments through business-friendly policies.

The ADR survey, which was conducted during October-December last year, had participation from over 2.7 lakh voters spread across various demographics, the ADR said in its report. The surveyors asked voters to list their top five governance priorities, and also rate them on a three-level scale — good, average and bad.

Apart from ‘better employment opportunities’, ‘better health care’ and ‘drinking water’ emerged as the other two high-priority governance issues for voters with 34.6% and 30.5% respondents voting for these, respectively, in the ADR survey. This was followed by ‘better roads’ (28.3%) and ‘better public transport’ (27.4%) at the fourth and the fifth place, respectively.

The worst performance of the Narendra Modi government, as rated by the voters, was on the issues of ‘encroachment of public lands’, ‘terrorism’, ‘training for jobs’, ‘strong defence/military’, ‘eradication of corruption’, ‘lower food prices for consumers’ and ‘mining/quarrying’, the survey report said.

Of the top 10 priorities, four agriculture-related issues were among the top 10 governance issues. These included ‘availability of water for agriculture’, ‘agriculture loan availability’, ‘higher price realisation for farm products’ and ‘agriculture subsidy for seeds/fertilsers’. However, the report said over 41% voters said distribution of cash, liquor, gifts, etc, was an important factor behind voting for a particular candidate in an election.

As per the Local Circles survey, 12% of citizens said the government should provide incentives to startups and small businesses while another 12% said it should boost public and private investment in infrastructure.