THE NATURE OF PROVINCIAL FINANCE 197
Currency, Debt, Tariffs, Posts and Telegraph, Railways and Adult and Accounts; while the latter administered matters of ordinary internal administration, such as Police, Education, Sanitation, Irrigation, Roads and Buildings, Forests, and the control over Local Bodies. If this incident encouraged the view that there was a separation of services, there was another incident of the relationship which encouraged the view there was also a separation of revenues between the Central and Provincial Governments in British India. That incident was the collection of most of the taxes in India by the agency of Provincial Governments. As observed by the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure [1]
“in the United Kingdom the Revenue Administration is centralized..... under the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London. In India the administration of some branches of revenue is centralized, though not always under the Finance Minister (of the Government of India). That of other branches is decentralized. The Land Revenue is under the control of the Central Department at Calcutta, but that department is subject not to the Finance Minister but to the Minister in charge of the Home and Revenue Departments. The Telegraph Department is under the Minister of Public Works. The Central Government controls the collection of part of the Salt duty and of part of the opium revenue, of Post Office revenue and of other revenues..... The remainder of the revenue is collected by the Provincial Governments.... As regards..... a large portion of the revenue, the Provincial Governments are units of administration and are efficiently equipped for their duties.”
As a third incident supporting the same view, reference must be made to the peculiar mode of presenting Indian Accounts adopted in official Blue Books. As might have been noticed, to the General Accounts of the Government of India is attached a supplementary account professing to show the distribution of the different heads of receipts and expenditure among the various Provinces into which British India has been divided. This mode of showing the accounts is beyond doubt misleading. It appears as if the aim was to show the financial position of the Provinces. But as a matter of fact the figures given in the columns in which the revenues and charges are shown in their provincial distribution do not represent the respective claims and responsibilities of the different Provinces. Far from showing the financial position of the Provinces, the figures in the columns merely represent the geographical distribu 1 Para 25 of the Final Report.