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10 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
party is certainly a matter, if one may say so, for congratulating the Honourable the Home Minister for demanding the money and the Honourable the Finance Minister for finding it. He certainly in my judgment needs the police force. He certainly needs their loyalty, for we all know now what he is engaged in doing with the police force, and we recently had an illustration of what use the police force is being made of. I refer to the firing that took place at Dharavi. I am sure that the present Government, which has, so far as I can see, shown very little sympathy for the advancement of the cause of labour, may have to indulge in greater use of the police force against the labouring classes. That the Congress Ministry should have come out in its true colour is a matter of congratulation. But with that I must stop, because in the rest of the budget there is nothing for which Government can take any credit.
The first thing, Sir, to which I would like to draw the attention of this House is what I regard certain examples of financial impropriety. There are before me here—I have called out from the financial statement which the Honourable the Finance Minister has presented—some 5 items, namely, item No. 53 which provides 24 lakhs for education, item No. 46 which provides Rs. 25,000 for what is called voluntary police force, item No. 105 which provides 4 lakhs for village panchayats, item No. 100 which provides 1 lakh for labour amenities, and item No. 67 which provides Rs. 80,000 for what is called the training of Unani Hakims. Now, Sir, when one looks at the Blue Book which has been circulated, one notices an admission on the part of the Government that for none of these items which are included in the financial proposal is there any scheme in existence. All these heads on which this expenditure is intended to be incurred are still in incubation. They themselves do not know what are the purposes on which this money is to be spent. The second thing is that this House has not passed any of the legislative measures on which this expenditure is supposed to follow. Sir, this expenditure which practically asks for a blank cheque from this House with the fullest liberty for the members of the Government to spend it on anything they like so long as it falls under the main heads such as education, police etc. amounts altogether to 31 lakhs of rupees. Now, if one takes into consideration the fact that the total amount of the new items which have been added by the Honourable the Finance Minister to the existing budget comes to about 1.16 lakhs, one can very easily realise the amount of money which this Government proposes merely to lift from the hands of the House and spend in the way it wants to spend. Sir, I cannot help saying that this Government has been constantly encroaching upon the privileges of this House. My honourable friend the Home Minister is unfortunately not here and I regret it because I do want to refer to one or two things for which he principally is responsible. I have noticed ever since the Congress Government has taken office that the Honourable the Home Minister has insisted that this House has no right to pass upon any rules that the Government might make under any