Access to drinking water, better employment opportunities and roads were the top three priorities of voters across Odisha, parameters on which the Naveen Patnaik government has performed "below average", says a report by the election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

"The Odisha Survey 2018 shows that drinking water (44.05 per cent), better employment opportunities (41.95 per cent) and better roads (37.30 per cent) are the top three voters' priorities overall in Odisha," the ADR said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement also said the Biju Janata Dal party in power in the state has been rated below average in terms of the performance of the government on all top three voters' priorities.

"The performance of the government on all top three voters' priorities of drinking water (2.30 on a scale of 5), better employment opportunities (2.30), and better roads (2.28) were rated as Below Average," it said.

In rural Odisha, the topmost voters' priorities were the availability of water for agriculture (43 per cent), drinking water (43 per cent) and better employment opportunities (41 per cent).

"The performance of the government on rural voters' priorities of availability of water for agriculture (2.48 on a scale of 5), drinking water (2.32) and better employment opportunities (2.27) was rated as Below Average," it said.

Besides, the election watchdog also said the government has performed poorly in providing better hospitals and primary healthcare centres (2.14), better roads (2.32) and electricity for agriculture (2.45) in rural Odisha.

"For the urban voters in Odisha, the topmost priorities were drinking water (48 per cent), better employment opportunities (45 per cent), and better hospitals/primary healthcare Centres (43per cent).

"The performance of the government on urban voters' priorities of drinking water (2.25 on a scale of 5), better employment opportunities (2.39), and better hospitals/primary healthcare centres (2.12) was rated as Below Average. In addition, the government has performed poorly in providing better roads (2.15) and water and on air pollution (2.27) in urban Odisha," it said.

The ADR commissioned a Voter Survey in the country between October 2018 and December 2018, ahead of the general elections.

It covered 534 Lok Sabha constituencies with 2,73,487 voters participating in this exercise spread among various demographics. The three main objectives of this survey were to identify the following: (i) voters' priorities on specific governance issues, (ii) voters' ratings of the government's performance on those issues, and (iii) factors affecting voting behaviour.

The survey covered approximately 10,500 respondents across all 21 parliamentary constituencies of Odisha.

--IANS

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