48 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
revised and cut down to an appreciable extent. To illustrate what the Government has done in the matter of revising these estimates, I would place before the House the following figures. The original estimate of the civil departments was 11,400 tons and it has been cut down to 4,600 tons during the six months. The original estimate of the Defence Department was 15,000 tons and it has been cut down to 10,000 tons. The Eastern Group Supply Council’s original estimate was 9,400 tons and that has been cut down to 7,900 tons. The Supply Department’s requirement of 3,100 tons has been increased to 4,500 tons— that is commercial paper used for industry. As the House will notice, the original estimates of the departments to which I have referred came to 39,100 tons, while the revised estimates come to 27,600 tons. The House will be pleased to notice that, as I have already indicated, by the cut imposed on the provincial and Indian State requirements a saving has been effected of 950 tons. And to that 11,900 tons obtained by revising the estimates of the different departments and the total comes to 12,850 tons. Now, compare this in the light of the paper that is consumed in India. There are no exact figures nor is it possible to obtain any exact figures ; but such figures as Government have shown that the annual consumption of paper in India was about one lakh of tons ; for six months it comes to 50,000 tons and as the House will remember, ten per cent of that is already left to the public under the orders issued by the Controller of Printing. That gives the public 5,000 tons. Add to that the 12,850 tons which have been saved now or will be saved by the reduction I have referred to, the total paper which can be released is 17,850 tons which as the House will see comes to nearly 33 per cent of what the public consume during peace time ……..
Mr. President (The Honourable Sir Abdur Rahim) : The Honourable Member’s time is up; there is no option.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I was going to refer next to the measures that we have taken in order to avoid waste. As my time is up I do not wish to go into those details. I can send them to the press, if that is the view of the House.
The next thing that I would refer the Honourable House to is what we propose to do for the next year. For the next year the estimate is about 70,000 tons ; in that what we have done is this ; we have fixed the quota of every department which needs paper. For instance, the