BUDGET BY ASSIGNED REVENUES 137
burden of a possible deficit in the normal estimate directly put a premium on economical and judicious administration of the ceded revenues. If the Government of India had agreed to bear the whole of the deficit below the estimated normal, it is doubtful whether the Provinces would have exerted themselves sufficiently to develop their resources to such a degree as to bring their yield to the level of the normal. But the fear that their obligation to bear half the deficit might assume a larger proportion, which would undoubtedly be the case if there was a great falling off in the revenue, compelled them to bestow greater vigilance than they would otherwise have done. Whilst an effectual check on relaxation was thus provided the scheme was not wanting in a stimulus to exertion. The prospect of gaining half the excess over the normal gave a more direct stimulus to the Provinces to develop their resources beyond the normal than would have been the case if the total excess had been entirely appropriated by the Imperial Government. In short, the deterrent effect of a deficit to bear and the stimulating effect of a gain to reap made the mechanism of Provincial Finance as perfect as it could be made from the standpoint of economy in expenditure and productiveness in resources.
Having noted the factors that led to the conception and execution of this new step in Provincial Finance and the features which marked its novelty, we may now proceed to the study of the constitution of Provincial Budgets and the revenue and charges that were incorporated into them. Unfortunately it is impossible to present a conspectus of Provincial Budgets as a whole, for the charges were not uniformly incorporated in all the Provincial Budgets. Each Province was treated individually. This compels us to enter upon the analysis of the Provincial Budgets as they were reconstituted in 1877-8 separately for each of the different provinces.
North-Western Provinces and Oudh [1]
The budget of the Province was recast rather than enlarged by additions to the already allocated items, as was the case with regard to some other Provinces. In its new form the budget of the Province incorporated the following heads of expenditure and revenue:—
1 Financial Department Notification No. 1807, Gazette of India, Part I, March
31, 1877, p. 172.