Jobs, water, farm loans major issues in Maharashtra

Better employment opportunities, drinking water and farm loan availability have been identified as issues that could play a major role in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said in voter survey.

Released on Wednesday, the Maharashtra Survey 2018 concluded that the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government neglected the people and failed to address the issues of importance. "This is quite clear that the government has performed poorly on almost all top governance issues as rated by the voters," it said. 

Better employment opportunities (42.10 per cent), drinking water (37.53per cent) and availability of agriculture loans (29per cent) were top three voter concerns in Maharashtra. 

On the scale of 5, the government performed below par on all three -- 2.48 on better employment opportunities, 2.52 on drinking water and 2.35 on farm loan availability.

The government's performance was also below average on rural voter priorities of farm loan availability (2.35), water for agriculture (2.29) and higher price realisation for farm products (2.17), on a scale of 5. 

The government also failed in addressing systematic issues that concerned rural voters, like subsidy on seeds & fertilisers, and power supply, especially for farming. 

Employment opportunities (48 per cent), drinking water (43 per cent) and traffic problems (35 per cent) were major concerns of urban voters. -IANS