106 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
His object was to enact local budgets “not merely to meet a temporary difficulty but to inaugurate a permanent improvement,” to the relief of the Imperial treasury and the benefit of the Provincial Governments. This scheme involving the management of the public works charges by the Local Government with an allotment from the Imperial revenues supplemented by the power to tax had secured a general approval. But at the time when the scheme was put forward the Local Government was without the requisite machinery for carrying into execution the powers of legislation necessary to impose the taxes proposed to be given to them. The execution of the scheme had therefore to be postponed pending the enactement of local legislative councils then undertaken by Parliament. But, the ensuing years having been years of financial prosperity, the interest in the scheme relaxed and it was consequently dropped sine die.
This spell of prosperity, however, proved to be only a passing phase and the stress of returning adversity which beset Mr. Massey compelled him to revive the scheme in a much more enlarged form. [1] He proposed that:
“In considering the ways and means by which the additional amount (of one million sterling) should be raised .....the most convenient mode of proceeding would be by a partial transfer of charges of a local character from Imperial to local account.”
As the annual produce of local funds applicable to local purposes in India did not much exceed two million sterling, it was proposed to make the moderate addition to this amount of £1,200,000 in round numbers to be raised in rateable proportions in the several Presidencies and Local Governments, and applied in relief of a corresponding amount of charge for local services then borne by the Imperial revenues. The above-mentioned sum of £1,200,000 was arrived at by an assessment of 4 per cent on the estimated revenues of the several Local Governments (except Burma) for the current year, after excluding customs duties and the income tax. [2] The heads of charges to which the proceeds of the new funds were applicable were (1) education, (2) police, (3) district jails, (4) public works, (5) repairs and maintenance of roads. The list of taxes suggested to provide ways and means
1 Demi-official letter dated February 25, 1866, to the Local Governments. Papers, etc., on the extension of Financial Powers of Local Governments, p. 67.
2 Ibid, para. 8.