Y.S. RANA, CHANDIGARH—Opposition parties have been making hue and cry over the
performance of one year of the NDA in office. But 87 per cent Indians feel positive about the next four years of the government. It is revealed in a recently concluded community poll held by the Local Circle, India’s leading Community Social Media network. Approximately 25,000 citizens have responded to each of the eight poll questions.
The poll has provided collective citizen pulse on the state of the things, the progress made in the last one year.
It is also found in the poll that citizen rating of government’s commitment towards fighting corruption has dropped from 61 per cent to 47 per cent. Citizen evaluation of government action towards improving women safety and tackling communalism during the past one year is also slightly lower from the 100 days of NDA
government’s poll held earlier. Both the questions were listed as the second and third top priorities of the government for 2015.
Other priority was energizing and empowering bureaucracy to deliver on the big promises made by the government in 2014. Strong actions remained to be seen on the ground on these fronts states the poll. In a separate poll, recently conducted by the Local
Circles in its 2.50 lakh strong Swachh Bharat community, it indicated positives of the mission being awareness creation but also highlighted that only very local few civic bodies are engaged in the mission and with the citizens is dampening the momentum.
The Local Circles governance communities have so far created more than 100 whitepapers and checklists on India’s governance and development across a variety of areas and have submitted these to the PMO and Ministers.
Here are the key takeaways from the first year of Government Performance poll:
1. 68% of the citizens have felt positive changes on the ground in the last 1 year as a result of Government efforts
2. 68% believe the Govt programs like Swachh Bharat, Jan Dhan Yojna, etc positively impacted them
3. Only 47% believe that corruption has reduced in the last 1 year from previous years
4. Only 44% believe the Government taken actions to improve Women and Child Safety in the nation
5. Only 56% believe the Government is effectively handling issues of Communalism
6. Only 18% believe the elected MP is engaged in addressing the issues of the constituency
7. 78% believe Government is making systemic changes to improve governance and citizen services
8. 88% are hopeful of positive changes in the next four years from the Modi led Government
LocalCircles had also conducted a poll on 100 days of the Government. Interestingly, some ratings including engagement of the MP with constituency were similar indicating that the MPs despite the findings from the 100 day survey, have not engaged more effectively at the constituency level.