Planning and regional development in India / edited by Jagannath Mishra and Chakradhar Sinha c.1

Regional disparities are a global phenomenon; these exist even in developed countries. There are, in fact, pockets of backwardness in the most developed countries of the world. These disparities are the two glaring manifestations of the contradictions in the mode of production and the subsequent pattern of distribution. As a corol lary to India's goal of 'growth with social justice', balanced regional development has been the most important aspect of our national objective since we began our plan ned endeavours after Independence. But successive five-year plans, launched to correct these inter regional and intra-regional imbalan ces, have not only dismally failed to narrow these down but have also widened them as revealed by the relative range in the highest and the lowest per capita income states.

Apart from the evil effects of socio economic disparities, these sharpen the psychological impact of such imbalances which has dangerous portents in the context of national integration. The situation, fraught with unwholesome implications, constitutes a cause for serious concern as well as a challenge to politicians and planners, academi cians and administrators.

The volume, which incorporates the papers presented by a distingui shed galaxy of the academic and administrative elite in a seminar held at the L.N. Mishra Institute of Economic Development and Social Change, Patna, embodies a blend of their unanimous recommendations aimed at suitable policy formula tions and implementation the field. The intellectual exercise. resorted to by the institute from time to time, will be amply reward ed if the policy-makers echo the valued suggestions encompassed in the form of a book in their bold exercise in rectifying the imbal ances.