222 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Budget. The Provincial Budget as framed by the Accountant General was passed by the Provincial Government and no more reference was required to the Government of India except to inform it that the estimate was a probable one and that it was within the limits of the revenues assigned to the Province. It is therefore obvious that there could not have been any constitutional objection to the granting of the demand for a separation of accounts.
The fourth recommendation was of the same class as the third, in that it too could not be said to have involved any infringement of the constitutional responsibilities of the Government of India. The abolition of the divided heads of revenue would have clearly eliminated the interference of the Government of India in the preparation of the Budget Estimates by the Provinces. Similarly the abolition of the divided heads of expenditure would have given the Provinces greater [1] freedom in the matter of spending the revenues assigned to them. Under that system a Provincial Government could not spend more on a particular service if it was a divided head unless the Government of India consented to increase its figure for expenditure under that service. If the Government of India reduced its figure the Provincial Government was perforce obliged to reduce its own. The substitution of a system of separation of sources and contributions from the yield for the system of divided heads would have clearly resulted in a greater freedom to the Provincial Governments, without any evil consequence to the Government of India. The objections which the Government of India was able to oppose to this demand was far from convincing. It was urged [2] that the Provincial Governments under complete separation may cease to take such interest as it took in respect of revenues which were divided. But it is evidently a mistaken view that a Provincial Government could not have been trusted to administer a tax efficiently unless it had a financial interest in the result. This view supposed that the people engaged in the collection of revenue really knew whether it went to the Imperial or the Provincial credit. As a matter of fact the ultimate credit could in no way have affected the collection of the revenue. And even if that view were true the
1 R.C.D., Mit of Evid., Vol. VIII, Q. 35225-28.
2 Ibid., Vol. IV. Q. 15100, 16791.