86 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
its executive machinery of control. The Act which created it must be said to have grievously erred in uniting into one the Government of Bengal and the Government of India. As a result of this fusion the machinery was overstrained. Its duties as the Government of Bengal left it very little time to attend to its duties as the Government of India. There was not only a common executive, but there was also a common Secretariat charged with the work of the two Governments. Overworked as the Secretariat was, its efficiency was considerably lowered by the absence of any officer specially charged with the duty of handling the finance of the country till 1843. It was in that year that Lord Ellenborough, the then Viceroy of India, separated the Secretariat of Bengal from that of India, [1] and attached to the latter a distinct office called the Financial Secretary to the Government of India, [2] unencumbered with the details of any other Department of State except that of finance. But while the want of a scrutinizing officer was thus made good by this appointment of a distinct Secretary of Finance, it was not possible for him to enforce economy in expenditure in the absence of a centralized system of audit and account and of an appropriation budget. Notwithstanding the establishment of the Imperial system of finance, the officers of audit and account remained attached to the Secretariats of the various Provincial Governments. They were not accountable to the supreme Government on whom the responsibility for the ordering and the management of the revenues of India had by law devolved. Being attached to the provincial Secretariat the Government of India could issue orders with regard to the accounts and the audits not directly but only through, and with the interpretation of, the Local Government concerned. Secondly, the budget system, though good enough for the purposes of mercantile accounts, that is, record, was useless for the first and elementary purpose of all good State accounts, namely, check. There were indeed three estimates (sketch, regular, and budget) prepared for the purposes of the financial administration of the country showing the amount of money required for the carrying on of each of the different services. But this distribution of public money on the different services was not held to mean appropriation. It was only treated as cash requirements. Owing to this fact the grants were never carefully prepared nor was the limit set on them observed in
1 Government of India Resolution, Home Department, April 29, 1843.
2 Government of India Resolution dated January 4, 1843.