What Chennai voter wants: above all, the odd-even scheme! -Governance Now

What Chennai voter wants: above all, the odd-even scheme!

Their top priorities are reducing traffic congestion and pollution, ADR survey finds

GN Bureau | May 4, 2016

#odd even #democracy #ADR #Tamil Nadu #Chennai #governance #politics #Elections

When people of Chennai go out to vote for the next state government on May 16, what will be the issues top most in their minds? Curiously, they will be thinking less about jobs, ‘good governance’, and the usual stuff, and more about traffic congestion and pollution – precisely the matters for which the Delhi government has found a debatable solution in the odd-even scheme.

READ: All eyes on Amma

In the run-up to the assembly elections, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) conducted a survey of over 16,000 respondents in every constituency of Tamil Nadu ending in February 2016. This was the largest survey done so far in the state, says the ADR in a release. 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.

When asked for their top three priorities, the Chennai voters said that traffic congestion, water and air pollution and noise pollution 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 48.08% of voters said that traffic congestion was one of the top three priorities for them, 34.84% of voters said that for water and air pollution, and 33.73% for noise pollution.

Clearly they show that issues of traffic and pollution are the top priorities for them. About 83% of voters gave one of these three as their top priority.

Create your own infographics

Better employment opportunities, lower food prices and facility for cyclists and pedestrians were also among 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, were not top priorities.

Performance rating of government

Among the worst rated performance was on traffic congestion and pollution. These unfortunately are among the top three priorities for the people. There were a total of 25 issues for which they gave priorities and then rated government’s performance. Thus for the top three priorities, traffic congestion was ranked 24th and noise pollution was ranked 21st out of 25, better employment opportunities 12th, and drinking water 23rd . So high priority issues for voters had very bad performance.

Conclusion

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.

Comments

Other News

When police data becomes the algorithm

For decades, policing has followed a familiar sequence: a crime occurs, the police respond, an investigation produces records and those records become part of the institutional memory of the criminal justice system. Artificial intelligence is beginning to alter that sequence. Instead of merely recording

Before India voted, the framers worried about the referee

“We are making a Constitution forever and not only for today.” Shibban Lal Saksena said this in the Constituent Assembly on June 15, 1949. He was warning that a ruling party might one day choose a loyalist to run India’s elections. Seventy-seven years later, the Supreme Court is wrestli

Delhi moves to real-time traffic management

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, has approved implementation of the ITMS Project by Delhi Police at an estimated cost of Rs.1,789.52 crore, inclusive of taxes. The project will cover 42 identified traffic corridors and will be implemented in three

MDR on UPI: Can sustainability come without weakening the network?

The extraordinary transaction volumes and value (₹29.82 Lakh crore in August 2026 alone) of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) have made it not only an Indian success story, but a global one. In 2024, UPI accounted for nearly 49% of the world’s real-time payment transaction volume, with more th

The Xi-Trump summit: The unending rivalry

Diplomacy is akin to an art, wherein the summitry, conflict resolution and negotiations form apt constituents of the entire context of deal making and “playing for keeps” in the international arena. The Xi-Trump summit in Washington last week, in which the American president broke all conside

“Indians, yet treated like outsiders”

Moving to Delhi-NCR for education can be an exciting experience for students from Northeast India. It gives us a chance to meet new people, experience a different culture and become more independent. But living away from home also comes with challenges that people who have not experienced them may not al