I think most of the Members of this House are not aware that this question came up for consideration in the shape of a Bill in 1941. I am not going to give any details from the proceedings-, of the Central Legislative Assembly of 1941 when this Bill was discussed and passed, but I will make a passing reference to some pages and I invite the attention of the House to the proceedings reported in Volume IV of 1941 November Session of the Legislative Assembly in 1941. The Bill that came up for consideration and was eventually passed was “The Railways Local Authorities Taxation Bill”. In that Bill-I give the gist of it-it was contended that the railway property as such would not be subject to any form of local taxes unless the local bodies rendered specific services to the railways. I may tell you at once that I stoutly resisted that proposition and throughout the discussion of this Bill I put up a stiff fight on behalf of local authorities as I felt that such a condition would act very disastrously on the finances of local self-governing institutions of the country. However, there was a settlement, a compromise. All the Mayors of the different corporations in India were called together, a conference was held in which I was a participant, and eventually a formula was evolved which somehow was acceptable to us.
