Secondary Research

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Daksh conducted perhaps the largest ever survey in any one country.

Scope
The survey was conducted across 525 Lok Sabha constituencies and over 2, 50,000 voters participated in this exercise spread among various demographics.
Intent
The main objective of this survey was to find out voter perception on specific governance issues and the rated performance of our Government on those issues.
Duration
The survey was conducted during December 2013 to February 2014, prior to the Lok Sabha elections. Objective The key objective of this perception assessment is to provide an improved understanding of the important expectations of voters from the Government and how they assess its performance.

Methodology
The survey was done in the months of December, ‘13, January and February, ‘14. While a professional agency was hired to do it, ADR-Daksh designed the questionnaire, and also made random checks to ensure that the survey was proceeding smoothly. Given the size of the survey, the time and budget limitations, we wanted to keep the questionnaire short and simple. It collected the following information:

• Demographic data. Name, gender, caste/religion, age, type of assets owned (to get wealth ranking information).
• What are the important factors for voting: Candidate, Political Party, Candidate caste/religion, Party’s PM Candidate,Distribution of ‘gifts’.
• ‘Knowledge’ of voter regarding crime and money in elections. Specifically whether they know of distribution of such gifts and whether they know of criminal record of candidates.
• The 30 Issues on Governance and rating of local governance on each issue. These included agriculture, electricity for agriculture and domestic use, farm prices, consumer prices, irrigation, subsidy for seed and fertilizers, accessibility and trustworthiness of MP, terrorism, employment, health care, law and order, public transport, roads, education, drinking water, empowerment and security of women, eradication of corruption, reservation, strong defence/military, subsidized 2 Pan-India Survey of Governance Issues food distribution (PDS), training for jobs, garbage clearance, encroachment of public land / lakes, facility for pedestrians and cyclists on roads, traffic congestion, environment and “others”. As mentioned earlier, “others” was included in case something important was missed in the list. Less than 5% respondents came up with any other issue.