42 SOCIAL SCIENTIST had created areas of isolation, and this was particularly true for north-east India although tea plantations and petroleum lured outsiders into the region. Without colonial bondage when an underdeveloped country launches upon developmental planning, its initial ventures have to be loca-tionally selective. But if the disproportionate emphasis continues over a long time, the input-output ratio between the regions is likely to stagger the process of overall growth.6 Besides this purely economic argument, there are strong political reasons for advocating the removal of regional imbalances. Planning Problems But regional planning by itself may not give the desired result. In its pure form regional planning is aimed at the removal of regional imbalances by maximizing the productive capacity of a region. It demands that the choice of priorities be informed by egalitarian motives. If, on the other hand, regional planning takes the form of selective promotion of particular sectors of the economy of the region, mainly with a view to serving the metropolitan interest, such development must be viewed as a hangover from the colonial era. For, in the case, (1) development of particular sectors may, rather than serving the regional needs, well be at the cost of other sectors of the economy, (2) the region may in terms of exportable surplus, be confronted with a buyer's market, as has been the fate of many Latin American countries or of the tea plantation industry in India (an economic activity seriously involving north-east India). Such a situation mav be in many ways no better than the situation obtaining from Total neglect of a region. This is not to prescribe a scheme for autarchy in the name of regional planning. For, the concept of a self-contained economic region is anachronistic in the modern setting. Consequently, generation of exportable surplus in certain sectors even at the cost of certain others may be justified, provided that the export-earning is meaningful to the developmental needs of the region as a part of the national economy. In particular situations, even the export-earning of the region may not be adequately meaningful, that is, compensatory to the region concerned in the interest of the macro-economy of the nation. In such a case, the sacrifice made by a region or a section of the people must be reciprocally shared by the other regions or other sections of the people. A lacuna in this system of sharing the benefit or the cost of growth may create instability and encourage disaffection. The truth of this hypothesis can be tested with reference to the disintegration of Pakistan whose eastern wing was long smarting under the grievance that the major part of foreign exchange earnings from jute export was appropriated for industrialization of the western wing. So much for the negative aspect of regional planning. There may be serious positive problems involved in the process. In the developing