Surely the PM and FM do not have to be told that India’s budget outlays are for every region of India; that not only should national funds be spread across India, they should be used to check existing regional imbalances instead of aggravating them. Under these circumstances, the NALCO divestment can only be seen as taking money out of Orissa to benefit the Centre. And, who knows, perhaps it will be earmarked for a UPA state in next year’s budget!

Now if the prime minister and his Cabinet were to shed their arrogance and correct their mistakes, starting with the announcement that the government will go ahead with the earlier plan to establish an NIS/IISER in Orissa as planned, that the government will correct regional imbalances by creating new IITs in the states without them, and that it would open central universities in backward district clusters across India, they would have gone some way in correcting the impression that they are essentially biased.

As for NALCO, if the money generated by divesting 10 per cent of the unit is spent on building Orissa’s long neglected infrastructure, then I for one will fully support the proposed divestment. However, as things stand, I have no hope that these suggestions will even be considered by New Delhi.

The writer is professor, Arizona State University