I would also like to draw the attention of the House to the first proviso of article 225. This is the only silver lining in the whole chapter of finance in our Constitution. It compels the Government of India to finance certain grants for development and raising the level of administration of scheduled areas in a particular State. To that extent it is all right but when you say that it should be raised only to the level of the rest of the areas of that State, I think it practically means that you are giving nothing. In the poor state of finances in a province like Assam where there is a large tribal area, if you only wish that it should be raised to the level of the rest of the areas of the province, it means you will do nothing because time is coming shortly, unless you do something in the matter, when the whole administration of the province of Assam shall have to collapse for want of finance and the condition in that province win deteriorate from day to day and by the time you have this article in force it will be very bad. If your ambition is only to raise the tribal areas in the province of Assam to the rest of the province, it means that your ambition is very small indeed and that you do not want to do anything. Therefore I would suggest that the ambition which you ought to have in this matter is that the areas-tribal areas-should be administered in such a way that it can be brought up not merely to the level of the rest of the province of Assam but also to the level of the areas of the Union itself. Therefore I have suggested in my amendment that these words ‘of the areas of that State’ should be converted to “areas of the Union”. Although that amendment is not there, there is nothing to prevent us from working in that direction. Another point to which I would draw the attention of the House is as regards the sub-clause (a) of the second proviso which says: The average excess of expenditure over the revenues during the two years immediately preceding the commencement of this Constitution, etc.
