Tamil Nadu poll: Farm loans top issue for rural voters, jobs for urban people

New Delhi: Availability of agriculture loan tops the priority list for rural voters in Tamil Nadu, while for the people in urban areas the most important issue is better job opportunity, a new survey showed today. “Rural voters still form the bulk of people in the state. When asked for their top three priorities, they said agriculture loans, employment and electricity for agriculture were the top priorities,” a report by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said.[caption id=“attachment_2737230” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Voters’issues. Reuters[/caption] Around 24.75 percent of voters said that agriculture loan availability was one of the top three priorities for them, followed by better employment opportunities for 22.88 percent and electricity for agriculture for 20.72 percent people. On the other hand, reservation for jobs, education, terrorism, strong military, corruption, law and order did not feature on the top of the priority list for voters, the report said. A survey of over 16,000 respondents was done in every constituency of Tamil Nadu before February 2016, ADR said. On the rural performance rating of government, the worst rated performance was on agriculture loan availability and better employment opportunities. Electricity for agriculture also did poorly according to voters. There were a total of 31 issues for which they gave priorities and rated government’s performance. Agriculture loan availability performance was ranked 27th out of 31, better employment opportunities 26th and electricity for agriculture 20th. The issue of agriculture loan availability was chosen by 22.79 percent of voters as one of the two issues on which they wanted to rate the government. The priority issues where the government performance was considered relatively good 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, it said. For urban voters, employment was given the highest priority, followed by noise pollution and drinking water. Better employment opportunities was opted by 23.59 percent urban voters, followed by noise pollution (21.82 percent), drinking water (20.69 percent). PTI