Here under article 255 we are discussing grants-in-aid to the provinces. Who made the Government of India, Finance Department, into a charitable institution that it gives occasional charities to undeveloped areas like Assam, Orissa, Bihar or Bengal ? We stand on justice and equity, we stand here on our rights that every province must have social justice, must have a basic standard of income or revenue. If I am condemned to four or five rupees per capita income, if Assam is condemned almost to the same level, it is not my fault. It is a legacy that foreign rulers have left. Today the spokesman of the Government of India stands up and talks glibly that they do not want to accept any change in the basic standard of revenue that must be allocated to the provinces. Sir, I said on Friday last that you will be pleased to examine, after these articles regarding re-distribution of finances between the Provinces and Centre, are considered, whether the Centre has discharged its powers and duties so as to give a minimum standard of development, and to raise the standard of administration in those areas where better public health, better standard of education,, better mode of living should come into being simultaneously with this Constitution. I do not claim that the Centre should so allocate the revenues as to give Rs. 25 per capita revenue expenditure to Orissa or Assam. I do not say that. But this august House, this sovereign House will nullify itself, will stultify itself if it does not determine before this Draft Constitution becomes an Act, what will be the basic standard of revenue placed at the disposal of the Provinces so that the Provinces might start on an even keel. Sir, article 255 talks of grants-in-aid of the revenues, of such States “as Parliament may determine to be in need of assistance.” My honourable Friend Rev. Nichols-Roy had tabled an amendment whereby he wants the introduction of the idea that what minimum assistance the provinces are getting, let them not be deprived of, till the so-called ad hoc committee or the Finance Commission comes into existence. : There is a very deliberate suspicion on the part of my friends from the undeveloped provinces that the Government of India in the Finance Department may become more autocratic and may deprive the provinces of the small grants-in-aid that are now prevailing. My honourable Friend Dr. Ambedkartalked and waxed eloquent on the provision of article 256 over the development of Assam. and over the development of other tribal areas-he quoted article 255 proviso (a) that the average expenditure of revenues during the three years immediately, preceding the commencement of this Constitution should be granted to these provinces. I must say, Sir, this is very bad logic on the part of that great humanitarian leader Dr. Ambedkar. Undeveloped provinces like Assam and Orissa had no resources to develop these tribal areas, these excluded areas, although the Government of India Act, 1935, of which my honourable Friend Dr. Ambedkar is so fond, from which he quotes so often as if it is the Magna Charta on which all constitutions could be based-that Act provided that it was the duty of the Central Government to help the development of these tribal areas. But, Sir, it remained a dead letter. The 1935 Act was never promulgated at the Centre. It was a mistake, and I recognise that it was a mistake on our part, not to have accepted the 1935 Act the-Federal Constitution at the Centre. If we did, today we would have been much better of. What happened? Did the Central Government help in the development of the tribal areas in these undeveloped provinces? No. Sometimes it gave doles in charities, but it did not really help in the development of the tribal areas; the Nagas, the Khasis and other tribes in Assam remained where they stood. What it did, it did for the defence of the British Empire, on the eastern frontier, and we know in the last war, where the enemy came. The enemy came through those hills, on to the Kohima battle-fields. So today to talk here. blithely that the undeveloped provinces will get the average of the last three years expenditure before the Constitution commences, shows the incapacity of the Government of India’s Finance Department, to face the situation to solve those problems. It has not faced the situation. Sir, I am a man of principles too–I agree with my honourable Friends Pandit Kunzru and Dr. Ambedkar that there should be principles, financial principles which should guide the governance of India and the provinces. But what are the financial principles that must be laid down. My Friend Dr. Ambedkar, coming from the Rs. 25 per capita standard of Bombay presidency, does not like the export duty to be distributed iniquitously to certain provinces. He quoted from the Export Committee’s Report, and it was a pleasant surprise to find that the Government of India and Dr. Ambedkar have accepted at least one moiety of the recommendations of that Committee. My friend quoted from that report, but he forgot to quote the consequential lines, regarding the allocation of jute duty. Sir, though we are not discussing specially the share of jute duty, we are still considering the grants-in-aid; and on page 9 of the Report, in para. 36, where the Sarker Committee allocates money for a period of ten years, they qualify it by saying… “If at the end of ten years, which we think should be sufficient to enable the Provinces to develop their resources adequately, the Provinces still need assistance in order to make up for this loss of revenue, it should no doubt be open to them to seek grants-in-aid from the Centre, which would be considered on their merits in the usual course by the Finance Commission”. Dr. Ambedkardid not qualify the Draft article which this House accepted yesterday-254-with this part of the recommendation, that the grants-in-aid must be given till provincial resources reach the right-standard. Here the Centre denies us, the undeveloped provinces, a basic standard of expenditure. Then in one stroke, by article 254, they still keep these poor provinces on tenterhooks. Orissa gets only 3 lakhs. I am not very much pleading here the cause of Orissa. I am pleading the cause of justice and equity, that there should have been a proviso somewhere so that the wrong done so arbitrarily by the Centre in the Draft Constitution, by article 254, may be set right automatically. That is why I plead before you, you as the guardian of this sovereign Constituent Assembly. You will see that there is some definite binding on the Government of India to give up its autocratic and bureaucratic codes and to pass round its resources to enable the Provinces to develop and not to be at the mercy of the Finance Commission or the Finance Minister of the time assisted and guided as he will always be by bureaucratic officials who continue in their set careering from 1924 onwards without any appreciation of new responsibilities devolved on them.
