india

Updated: May 16, 2017 09:35 IST

Three out of five Indians are satisfied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s performance though a majority feels his government is sliding on checking prices, generating jobs and preventing crime, an online poll has found.

Tuesday marks three years of the BJP-led NDA storming to power at the Centre. The Modi government, in these years, either met or exceeded expectations of 61% of the people surveyed while 59% felt it was on track to fulfil pre-poll promises, says a survey by LocalCircles.

More than 40,000 respondents in around 200 cities participated in the exercise conducted by the online citizen engagement platform.

Modi’s political capital has largely remained intact even though his government has not done enough to create jobs, check inflation, improve healthcare and prevent crime against women and children.

Of the missions the government has launched, direct benefit transfer got the highest approval (47%) and Make in India the lowest (8%).

Modi’s signature Clean India campaign seems to fail to impress as 57% of the people responded in negative when asked if their cities were cleaner.

The areas in which the Modi government scored high were foreign policy, especially vis-à-vis Pakistan, its handling communalism, infrastructure development and performance in Parliament in terms of delivery on key bills.

While 81% respondents felt that India’s image and influence in the world had improved, 64% approved of the handling of Pakistan, a significant increase from last year when the figure stood at 34%.

About 51% said demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes was successful in cracking down on black money. But only 37% agreed that scrapping of the high-value notes had reduced corruption.

The contradiction reinforces the goodwill the PM continues to enjoy despite poor rating of his government’s schemes that have a bearing on daily life.

People have a grim view of parliamentarians, with 69% citizens saying their elected MPs did not address problem of their constituencies.

This was the third annual survey of the government’s performance by LocalCircles. Compared to last year, there was a marginal fall in the percentage of people who felt the government met their expectations — from 46% to 44% — while dissatisfaction rose by 3% to 36%.

“Overall, as change hasn’t come fast enough for most people, there is a decline in citizens’ rating of the government in most areas compared to last year,” stated LocalCircles.

Only 28% of the citizens said the prices of essential commodities came down as against 38% last year. “This means there is a difference between citizens’ perception and official inflation indicators,” the survey agency said.