In last year's Budget, Mr Yashwant Sinha had provided a tax relief on housing loans. But that measure has not had the desired impact. Most respondents felt that Mr Sinha had not been successful with his housing initiatives and they wanted him to do more. Sixty-nine per cent of the citizens had not availed of the tax relief and were not aware of the benefits laid down in the Budget, while only 18 per cent answered in the affirmative and 13 per cent could not make up their minds.

Even on the FM's home turf, Hazaribagh, the move had not gone down well with the people, with 87 per cent of the respondents answering in the negative, 11 per cent saying `yes' and 2 per cent `don't know'.

The survey covered 2,200 people in socio-economic groups A & B across 12 cities, including separate responses from the residents of Hazaribagh. The other major factor, affecting the lives of the people included in the survey, was employment. Past employment schemes, laid down in the previous Budgets, received a lukewarm response. Both, respondents in Hazaribagh and outside it, felt none of the schemes announced were successful with 38 per cent of the former and 29 per cent of the latter saying they were `not successful'.

And what's more, 28 per cent of the people (14 per cent in Hazaribagh) said the schemes had not been successful at all and 22 per cent felt they had been somewhat successful (25 per cent in Hazaribagh).

Subsidies for higher education was something that all respondents wanted to be increased, especially in Hazaribagh with 61 per cent of them looking forward to increased subsidies on higher education compared with 44 per cent for the rest of India. And 39 per cent the country wanted the existing cuts for higher education to continue. Ranking the issues that have been addressed by Mr Sinha in the previous Budget, respondents felt the FM had dealt with prices and stability of the government finances at the Centre, the best.

In Hazaribagh, Mr Sinha had obviously been nurturing his vote bank with jobs, as the respondents felt he had dealt with employment very well. But corruption and funds to maintain law and order were at the bottom of this ladder.

However, the one thing that seemed fair to all, were the sops to the agriculture sector, with 50 per cent (56 in Hazaribagh) agreeing that agricultural income should not be taxed and only 35 per cent (36 in Hazaribagh) saying it was unfair.

For the common man, improved infrastructure, convergence, sops to industry, taxes and savings are also issues to debate about, which the ZeeTV-ORG Marg survey will cover over the next two days, including the overall impact on household budgets.

To be continued