324 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
published and then passed. We wish to exempt the rules that we propose to make under the provisions of this Bill from the provision of previous publication prescribed under Section 31. The reason for providing such exemption is that we are very anxious that this liability not only should be imposed, but should be earned out immediately, we wish to avoid delay. In fact, I might tell the House that the Government are so anxious to have this system of pit-head baths introduced in all coal mines immediately that Government themselves have made a provision by which they are prepared to offer ten per cent of the capital cost of the baths to colliery owners if they undertake to provide such baths within twelve months. In order that this may be done, we do not propose to have these rules subjected to the provision of Section 31. The Bill is so essential and so simple and so non-controversial, that the House will accept it without much ado—Sir, I move.
Mr. Deputy President : Motion moved.
“That the Bill further to amend the Indian Mines Act, 1923, be taken into consideration.”
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : We want to hasten this thing and that is why we offer this kind of encouragement, that if a mine owner docs construct these baths within twelve months from a given date he will get this concession. Otherwise, he will not get it and he will have to do it at his own cost.
Pandit Govind Malaviya : Will not that purpose be served if it were laid down that the mine owners shall get those baths ready within twelve months
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : We must give some time.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I did not think that my Honourable friend Mr. Siddiqui, would be so much perturbed,— he is not here in the House just now—by the shower baths. But I would like to tell the House that the question whether there should be shower baths or not is not an idiosyncracy on the part of the Government or their own innovation. There is, as I told the House, an Advisory Committee, representative of coal miners, coal owners, representative of the Bengal Government and Bihar Government, which advise Government in the matter of the administration of what is called the Coal Miners’ Welfare Fund. This question of the sort of baths that
Legislative Assembly Debates (Central), Vol. I-No. 13, 8th February 1946, pp. 719-20.