128 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
I, therefore, hope that we shall tackle the problems connected with electricity in an earnest and in a statesmanlike manner thinking it terms of human life and not in terms of the competing claims of the Centre versus the Provincial Government.
I do not like to end on a note of pessimism though the memory of the past efforts of reconstruction is nothing but sad. War seems to give birth to an urge for Reconstruction for the same reasons that necessity gives rise to invention or adversity to belief in God. The pity of it is that this urge which is born out of the war seems to the with peace. That did happen in India with the reconstruction scheme put forth by the Indian Industrial Commission and the Indian Board of Munitions after the last war. I have faith that this time the reconstruction plan will not be allowed to languish and fade away. We have in this war the compelling force of what William James called “the pungent sense of effective reality” of what poverty in India is, which the statesmen of the last War did not have.
- Help for Scheduled Castes Students and Indian Evacuees
Proposals Approved by Standing Finance Committee
Grant of scholarships to scheduled castes students pursuing education in scientific and technological subjects and expenditure on Indian evacuees from war zones and dependants of persons detained there, were the two important proposals approved by the Standing Finance Committee at its meeting held in New Delhi on November 20, 1943, with the Hon’ble Sir Jeremy Raisman, Finance Member to the Government of India, in the chair.
The former proposal will involve an annual grant of Rs. 3 lakhs for 5 years and the latter is expected to entail an expenditure of Rs. 225 lakhs in 1944-45.
Scholarships
It was stated that in order to assist members of the scheduled castes, who had reached the high school stage, to obtain higher education, it was proposed to grant scholarships to the extent of
3 lakhs a year for five years. The scholarships would be awarded for scientific and technological studies both in India and abroad.
The Committee approved the proposal.
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- Indian Information, December 15, 1943, p. 337.