152 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
delegated to its control. But if it did its duty, unlike the other provinces, its labours were not to be unrequited.
The same principle of shared revenues was applied to the province of Assam, which had hitherto continued on the old basis of 1871. Although the settlement with that Province had been made after that with Burma had been carried out, the principle of shared revenues as a mode of balancing the Provincial Budget was not adopted on any appreciable scale. The reason for this break in the progressive realization of the principle is not to be attributed to any spirit of hesitation on the part of the Government of India, but is to be ascribed mainly to the necessity of the case. As it was contemplated to reincorporate the province into Bengal it was deemed expedient to frame the Provincial Budget of Assam on the same plan as that of Bengal so that their financial fusion might be as easy as the administrative. Thus the heads of revenue and expenditure which were provincial in Bengal since 1877 were also made provincial in Assam in 1879, including “Law Officers,” which for temporary reasons were reserved as Imperial in Bengal. The only point at which the new principle was applied consisted in making the Land Revenue head in Assam a joint head to be shared by the Imperial and the Provincial Governments in the proportion of four-fifths of its net yield to the former and one-fifth to the latter. [1]
The beneficial results of the new settlement with these two Provinces are easily to be seen from the following comparative table of the estimates of their budgets as prepared on the old basis and as recast on the new :—
000 omitted
| Col1 | Assam Budget Estimates | Col3 | Col4 | Col5 | Bt. Burma Budget Estimates | Col7 | Col8 | Col9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old Basis | New Basis | Old Basis | New Basis | |||||
| 1878-9 | 1879-80 | 1878-9 | 1879-80 | 1878-9 | 1879-80 | 1878-9 | 1879-80 | |
| Revenue ... Expenditure ... Surplus ... Deficit ... Closing ... Balance | £ 2115 2253 ... 138 206 | £ 2110 2261 ... 151 55 | £ 3657 3480 177 ... 521 | £ 3596 3566 30 ... 555 | £ 4013 4169 ... 156 873 | £ 4078 5111 ... 1033 161 | £ 9459 8926 533 ... 1562 | £ 9673 10119 ... 526 1436 |
From the Resolution of the Government of India in the Department of Finance and Commerce, No. 1249, dated March 13, 1879.
1 Finance Department Resolution No. 1598, dated April 17, 1879.