1114 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
There are two fundamental objections to this proposal. In the first place, this matter was canvassed at various times between the Provincial Premiers and the Finance Department of the Government of India in which the proposal was made that in order to remove the difficulties that arise in the levy of the sales tax it would be better if the tax was levied and collected by the Centre and distributed among the Provinces either according to some accepted principles or on the basis of a report made by some Commission. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Provincial premisers were to a man opposed to this principle and I think, Sir, that their decision was right from my point of view.
Although I am prepared to say that the financial system which has been laid down in the scheme of the Draft Constitution is better than any other special system that I know of. I think it must be said that it suffers from one defect. That defect is that the Provinces are very largely dependent for their resources upon the grants made to them by the Centre. As well as know, one of the methods by which a responsible Government works is the power vested in the Legislature to throw out a Money Bill. Under the scheme that we have proposed; a Money Bill in the Province must be of a very meagre sort. The taxes that they could directly levy are of a very minor character and the Legislature may not be in a position to use this usual method of recording its “no confidence” in the Government by refusing taxes. I think, therefore, that while a large number of resources on which the Provinces depend have been concentrated in the Centre, it is from the point of view of constitutional government desirable at least to leave one important source of revenue with the Provinces. Therefore, I think that the proposal to leave the sales tax in the hands of the Provinces, from that point of view, is a very justifiable thing. That being so, I think the amendment of my Friend Prof. Shibban Lal Saxena falls to the ground.
With regard to the amendment of my Friend Mr. Tyagi, I would like to say that I am in great sympathy with what he has said. There is no doubt about it that the sales tax when it began in 1937 was an insignificant source of revenue. I have examined the figures so far as Bombay and Madras are concerned. The tax in the year
1937 in Madras was somewhere about Rs. 2.35 crores. Today it is very nearly Rs. 14 crores. With regard to Bombay the same is the situation, namely, that the tax about Rs. 3.5 crores in 1937 and today it is somewhere in the neighbourhood of Rs. 14 crores. This must be admitted as a very enormous increase and I do not think that it is desirable to play with the sales tax for the purpose of