1094 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
did not furnish the Drafting Committee any material basis for coming to any definite conclusion. Consequently the Drafting Committee has left the matter with the provision that the President shall continue to get the same allowances which the Governor-General got at the commencement of the Constitution. Later on the Parliament may change the salary and allowances of the President subject to this, that they shall not be changed during the tenure of the President concerned.
I should like to give the House some idea as to what are the allowances which the President would be entitled to get if the provision suggested by the Drafting Committee, that the allowances payable to the GovernorGeneral at the commencement of the Constitution should operate.
I find from the budget estimates for 1949-50 the following figures were included in the budget under the heading “Allowances to the Governor-General”:
(1) Sumptuary allowance of Rs. 45,000 per annum.
(2) Expenditure from contract allowance Rs. 4,65,000.
(3) State conveyance : Motor cars : Rs. 73,000.
(4) Tour expenses : Rs. 81,000.
Total allowances are Rs. 6,64,000 per annum, according to the budget estimate of 1949-50.
I need not say, as I said, anything about the allowances, because the allowances are liable to be changed by Parliament at any time. The important question is about the salary and I submit that the salary of the President as fixed at Rs. 10,000 seems to me as also to the Drafting Committee to be a very reasonable figure, having regard to the circusmstances to which I have referred.
I need not say much about the salary of the Governors. That has been fixed by an Order made recently by the Governor-General, and they appear to me to be quite reasonable and it also observes the same principle that in the provinces where the highest paid official is the Chief Justice the Governor should get something more than the Chief Justice of the province. It is from that point of view that the figure for the salary of the Governors has been fixed.
The only other provision to which I would like to refer is that originally it was not proposed to make any provision with regard to the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General. There again, the salary has been fixed at Rs. 4,000 by Schedule II, subject to the proviso that while the present incumbent continues to function as the Comptroller and Auditor General he will get as personal pay the difference between the salary fixed