Regional Development: Planned Approach a Must

Dr. B K Mukhopadhyay

(The author, a noted management economist and an international commentator on ongoing business and economic affairs, can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

The development of backward regions essentially calls for exploring the existing and potential resources. Human resource management backed by marketing strategies always stays at the top of the agenda on this score. While the availability of resources is not that difficult in the current business environment scenario, more often than not appropriate utilization itself remains a laggard. Hence, the result achieved in the next period remains sub-optimal in spite of the creation of institutional facilities. The time has come to see that the latent resources — human, technological and physical — are bolstered over time so that the markets (domestic and overseas) offer excellent opportunities to forge ahead by recognizing competitive skills. The creation of facilities over time and space is the starting point since a lot depends on how the same is absorbed in as much as business is a continuous and spontaneous process. In this paper, an analysis is made mainly focusing on the Northeast region of India which continues to struggle against a number of odds that have been holding back its overall development.

Scanning development indicators

Any study/scanning of development is important and at the same time interesting. It is important because in any economy, developed or developing, the scope for further economic and social development is always there through optimal utilization of resources over a finite time and space. The challenge before the biggies is how to maintain the level of development already reached for ensuring a better life to their citizens and to aid trailers so that the latter can climb upon the development track. For the developing block, the challenge is all the more crucial and at the same time difficult, especially considering the complexities of the globalization process. Newer techniques and ‘innovention’ (innovation plus invention) call for continuous searching and unearthing. Thus, the arena is interesting, more so because the process of development today is not well defined nor there exist any short cut routes!

As of now, the change has been so fast that it has become increasingly difficult to adapt quickly to the ever-changing processes where one technology is being fast substituted by the next one. The orthodox view – considering development as relating to the process of increasing the relative and absolute wealth of LEDCs (least economically developed countries) usually through notions of increased output of either industrial or agricultural goods – has also been under scanner. Modern age economists contend that development of LDCs (least developed countries) to the wealth levels of the richer OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) nations, using extractive production and trading processes similar to those of OECD nations, is untenable because of the ecological and environmental damage which would ensue. No doubt, a new paradigm of development has reason and validity, considering the reality increasingly seen globally.

Who would have thought that cheaper flights will one day be contesting with rail journeys, the sub-prime crisis paving the topsy-turvy way to the global meltdown, or Satyam to go under the scanner?

Development means ‘upward drift of the entire social system’, as rightly opined by Prof. Paul Samuelson. Truly, development studies as an area calls for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach where economic factors are equally important as non-economic ones, so that all the relevant issues of concern to developing economies, in particular, are addressed in a wholesome manner – regional studies, demography, economics, anthropology, management and essentially sociology, pedagogy, social policy, migration, human security, philosophy and ethics, international relations and gender issues. The crucial need remains — to learn lessons of past development experiences of Western countries. Former US President Harry S. Truman rightly stated that “for the first time in history, humanity possesses (ed) the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people”. Time stays, we go out. Ecological and environmental damage was not there on the tea-time discussion table, whereas the same has now been the talk of the town.

It has a special focus on issues related to social and economic development and the relevance goes to communities and regions beyond the developing world. That is one of the foremost reasons why the area is attached to much importance by leading global institutions – the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the like. Non-government organizations (NGOs), as well as private consultants, have also to borrow a lot from this discipline.

Regional planning: The actual guide

The emergence of development studies as a separate discipline began from the second half of 20th century, originating mainly out of concern around the economic and social prospects of trailers (the third world) after decolonization, when it was largely felt that economic aspects alone could not fully address development requirements (viz. educational provisions, political effectiveness) and thereafter it could reasonably assume an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary area of thought. That encompasses a variety of social scientific fields.

The overall objective of a regional plan is to achieve sustainable development, harmonizing social, economic and environmental needs through appropriate planning and management of land and its resources — in as much as regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land-use activities, infrastructure and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. Regional planning is a sub-field of urban planning as it relates to land-use practices on a broader scale. Regional development refers to the provision of aid and other assistance to regions that are less economically developed. The implications and scope of regional development may, therefore, vary in accordance with the definition of a region, and how the region and its boundaries are perceived internally and externally.

In today’s world, especially, there is a severe shortage in Asia of skilled personnel who could join the team that shoulders the responsibility of ensuring not only growth but development as well, ensuring balanced regional growth – drifting apart from the incidence of rural exploitation for urban growth! In fact, it is the very incidence of regional imbalances that go on keeping the rural counterpart as the depressed corridor. Only skilled personnel with a better understanding of the growth environment can be the instrument for developing backward regions and ensure creation of lasting assets as well as the human factor utilization — and thus ease social tension, terrorism, and destructive politics.

What is more, human security aspects have emerged to be an area where there exists a high degree of correlation between security and development aspects. Clearly, as on this day, inequalities and insecurity in one region have definite direct and indirect bearings on global security and development of the global economy.

Today’s happenings – subprime crisis, financial crisis, food insecurity, distributional hazards, corruption, communal disharmonies are hindering the growth process in many ways. So, the traditional thinking is to be heavily replaced by the latest regional planning techniques, in as much as regional development and regional policies have to pursue two overarching aims — increasing economic growth and/or augmenting social justice by reducing spatial disparities hierarchically, temporally, sectorally and functionally.