The House will recollect that during the two years from January 1947 to October 1948 this House met only for 35 or 40 days at the most. For some reason or other the Drafting Committee was not ready, and we could not meet at all for more than 40 days in 22 months; if we had worked longer and met at more frequent intervals, we could have seen the Constitution through much earlier. Anyway, even today the way expedite the Constitution is not to apply the axe ruthlessly to debates in the House, but to apply it reasonably. The way is to work longer hours, if necessary. We have realised this only too late in the day. Had we worked longer hours in 1947 or 1948, we would by now have seen this Constitution through. I have always favoured a night session; if we work morning, noon and night, I am sure we can finish it in another week or so. It is too late to make this suggestion at the fag-end of the Constitution, when a few more days remain for the Third Reading. I wanted to suggest to my honourable Friend Shrimati Durgabai it was wrong on her part to suggest that this House has been guilty of a huge drain upon our financial resources. This House has not been guilty of it: there are various reasons and circumstances which conspired to bring about this financial expenditure. I would not call it a huge drain at all; we have not exceeded the budgeted amount for Constitution making.
