210 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Finance, and equally idle to assert that some fundamental change had taken place in consequence thereof. To be just, only two changes worth speaking of may be said to have resulted from the introduction of Provincial Finance :—
(1) Before 1870 balances on all services lapsed to the Government of India at the close of the financial year. After 1870 all unspent balances on the services delegated to the management of Provincial Governments remained at their disposal and formed a part of their resources for the ensuing year.
(2) Before 1870 Budget estimates on all services had to be sanctioned by the Government of India and the Provinces could not undertake any reappropriations between the different grants for the year, even if it was found necessary, without the previous sanction of the Government of India. After 1870 the Provinces were left to a greater extent free to distribute their expenditure in any way they thought proper among the various services delegated to their management, provided their total expenditure did not exceed the funds lying in the Imperial treasury to their credit respectively. [1] But by the rules they were required to maintain all the services under thier management in a state of administrative efficiency. Similarly after 1870 the Provincial Government had complete freedom which they never enjoyed before to carry on reappropriations between the grants under their management without the sanction of the Government of India, provided their total expenditure did not exceed the amount budgeted for the year.
1 Whether they could materially alter the distribution of the grants on the different services delegated to them is doubtful. In his despatch No. 30, dated December 10, 1874, in the Revenue Department, on a proposal by the late Lord Hobart, Governor of Madras, to discontinue the grant made from provincial funds for Roads and to devote the money to education, the Secretary of State wrote ; “I am unable to reconcile it with the principles which govern the so-called provincial administration of the revenue. I am not, indeed, of opinion that the same relative proportion which existed, on the introduction of the system, between the services made over and the expenditure upon them, should always be maintained. But I agree with Mr. Sim, that there was an implied engagement to maintain all these departments in full efficiency and integrity and an implied understanding that no one of them should be wholly sacrificed to the others, or to any other. The new financial arrangements in question were most fully discussed, both by the various Indian Governments as constituted at the time, and by the Home Government. During this discussion it was certainly never suggested that an effect of the change might be to put a stop to the construction of new roads in some parts of India; if such an eventuality had been considered probable, I doubt whether the change would have been made.”