120 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
certain sources of Imperial revenue or to give a lump assignment from the Imperial treasury. It was difficult for a time to decide which was the more suitable of the two, for they were not only of unequal merits, but they made different appeals to the different parties concerned. To the Provincial Government assignment of revenues was preferable to fixed assignments as giving greater elasticity to their finances. To the Government of India, on the other hand, assignment of revenues seemed to be fraught with grave consequences. The past and the existing financial condition of India did not warrant the Central Government to alienate the sources of revenue it then possessed with equanimity and safety for the future. On the other hand, its prospective condition looked as precarious as its past, and it therefore desired to retain its control over the sources the mobilization of which alone could enable it to stave off any impending crisis. The second alternative, on the other hand, was just such a one as to give the provinces sufficient funds without the Government of India forfeiting its control over its resources. It must not be forgotten that the Government of India by reason of its constitutional position had the sole authority to manage and appropriate the revenues of India. Any solution for financing the provinces had therefore to be in accord with its interests as conceived by itself. This being the situation the method of assignments was adopted in preference to that of assigned revenues in solving the principal problem that arose in connection with the constitution of provincial budgets.
It is because assignment of funds from the Imperial treasury was adopted as a method of supply to balance the Provincial Budgets that the system instituted in 1871-2 has been characterized in this study as a system of Budget by Assignments.
This principle on which the Provincial Budgets were constructed in 1871-2 endured till 1876-7. The assignment made to the Provincial Governments for the year 1871 -2 had been declared to be fixed and recurring. Recurring they were, but fixed they were not; for, every year, since the start, the Government of India kept on adding to and withdrawing from Provincial Budgets items of charge already incorporated in them. In accordance with these modifications in the incorporated charges the Imperial assignments had to be either reduced or augmented as necessity dictated. The progressive changes in the assignments from 1871-2 to 1876-7 with the specific purposes for which they were granted are entered in the following tables :—