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Starting
from economic policy, which were inherently
detrimental to heartland interest, planners and
federal administration has been in the grip of
regionalist interest all along ever since this
country got its independence. Do as they wish,
but the entire act will go into destroying the
country which was born out of shared vision of
the leadership of this great land at the time of
independence. True, heartland enjoyed
disproportionate political power, but this came
at the cost of great economic sacrifices.
Even when the economic disparity has become so
accentuate to be obvious all around and has
resulted in mass internal migration and
dislocation of masses, planners and federal
policy makers seem to be oblivious of the same.
What we are seeing in Maharashtra and
occasionally being reflected in other part of
country, bears out the evidence of the same.
Yes, natives of Maharashtra have all the right
to agitate against the huge influx of outsiders.
One can see merit in what they are demanding and
asking for. A native cannot leave Maharashtra
for these northern states for a job of peon or
for earning daily wages doing odd jobs. First
there are no avenues to facilitate that and even
if it were there, they will have to bear a huge
pain of dislocation while they could have the
same nearer home without this unwarranted pain.
People from heartland are not so lucky in this
regard. They bear the pain of dislocation and
treated scornfully at the host place yet they
will have to endure all this.
The problem is more compounded by high level
images fed in the mind of the policy making
elite. So much so that even the people in
responsible position end up uttering sentences
which consigns the hitherto lagging states to
the position of whipping boy. Truth is that the
central policy and regionalist approach of
federal administration has been to a great
extent responsible for developing the so called
advance states while keeping yet others as
perennial laggards.
Take for example; mineral rich states were
deliberately kept backward through the policy of
freight equalization. An honest approach would
warrant that states having these mineral
resources should have the complete say in
regards to it instead of central governments.
Taking advantage of lack of strong voice from
the hitherto illiterate masses of these states,
even now the center has retained the right of
determining national mineral policy. Coal blocks
will be taken away by the better off states for
setting up power plants even if the same does
not make the best economic sense for country as
whole.
Again company may have there primary office in
one state but HQ and administrative setup are
created in these mega cities of other states
feeding the administrative staff of the other
states at the cost of state creating the primary
economic value. That’s how we have created
cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai
in the first place.
Location of strategic national resources,
especially the ones having significant economic
importance has a story to tell. Institutional
infrastructures (like nodal agency, regulatory
bodies, research institutions, training and
academic institutions) and even the basic
infrastructures has primarily been created by
federal administration. And the preference has
been given to states which have retained their
regional aspirations, in spite of being part of
this country. And now these very states have
gumption to lecture the states which ended up
making sacrifices in the first place.
Making mockery of semblance of equitable
economic development, even today, most of the
federal investment in basic Infrastructure is
directed at advance states than the lagging
ones. Record of past 4-5 years in distribution
of new ‘National Institutions of Economic
Importance’ (including academic and research
institutions), basic infrastructure investment
and also the investment distribution of central
government controlled (direct and indirect)
entities will bear out the fact that federal
administration is even now not alert to this
growing disparity. God save our India form this
myopic lot!
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