the last 8 years is 664 crore exports and 292 imports, leaving a balance of 372 crores. In West Pakistan 586 crores exports and 826 imports-leaving an unfavorable balance of 239 crores of rupees. These 372 crores which could have been brought to East Pakistan have not been brought and the goods of the country have gone away by way of export leaving the country poorer so far as the material goods are concerned. But in proportion to that, that amount of goods did not come by way of imports giving no incentive to the producer, the labor and all other classes of the people who are interested in this and the country has become poorer. It works in this way, Sir, that when the country becomes poorer in production of goods, the labor suffers because they have no incentive to produce more and the producer of raw material cannot produce raw material on account of the fact that income of the country has become less and in that way, it goes on diminishing every year and at the end of another 8 years, the economists have calculated it, the position of East Bengal will come to zero.
Honorable Deputy Speaker: I have heard that before.
Mr. Ataur Rahman Khan: All right, Sir. This is the position and a solution to this should have been found by the division of foreign exchange. There is no harm in it. It would not have made the Centre weak in any way. Nobody should be shocked at that. What is actually the position here? The entire amount of foreign exchange is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan. The State Bank could have been divided also as it is done in other countries. As my friend Mr. Mansur has said that there are countries which merely on account of sheer distance have divided the State Bank in two parts. Even in the neighboring country India, in the month of January, 1955, I read a statement of Mr. Nehru that they are going to create five or six zones of the Reserve Bank with a federating Reserve Bank over all of them at the Centre.
Honorable Deputy Speaker: You want this provision in the Constitution.
Mr. Ataur Rahman Khan: Yes, Sir. There should be two State Banks for the two wings for State Bank controls foreign exchange. There should be one Federating unit situated at Karachi and two branches-one at Lahore and another at Dacca...
I have been telling this House about facts of economy that we want to order out things there. So far as Commerce, Industries, and other things are there, it is necessary for us to put up a strong case and show that it is on account of the defective policy of the Commerce Department of the Centre that we have suffered so much. Had it been with us, we would not have suffered. Sir, non-devaluation decision of the Government was a sort of course for East Bengal and this revaluation decision is serving as a nightmare. I will show you just how it is so. At the time of non-devaluation, large exports bring in large machinery, heavy plants and installations and other things and the country is benefited. Bui the machinery which came in lieu of those large exports at the time of non- devaluation did not benefit East Bengal a little. Exports at that time were very very heavy and Pakistan was in a very good position so far as the currency of the country was concerned. But West Pakistan was entirely benefited thereby. Now, Sir, West Pakistan has become completely industrialized, so much so that a stage has reached, as my friend Mr. Abul Mansur said, that industries are in a position to produce surplus which they can export. In East Bengal the industrial progress is at the low ebb and there is no possibility
