DRAFT CONSTITUTION 785
up to now dependent upon a share in the export duty. Therefore a provision is made that instead of giving specifically a share in the export duty an equivalent sum or such other amount as the President might determine may be made over or assigned to those provinces for the period the export duty continues to be levied or until the expiration often years, whichever is earlier. The latter is introduced in order to enable those provinces to get sufficient time to develop their resources so that after the period mentioned in this article they would be in a position to balance their budgets.
I hope, Sir, the salutary principle which is now embodied in this amended article 254 will be acceptable to the House.
*The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General) : Mr. President, Sir, in my reply to the debate, I do not propose to go over the many tales of woe that have been sung in this House by Members from different provinces who feel that they have been badly treated in the distribution of revenues that has been ordered under the Government of India Act, 1935. I just propose to take the few more concerete points to reply to.
First of All, I propose to say a word with regard to the amendment moved by my Friend, Professor Shibban Lai Saksena. He wants that the grants, instead of being fixed by the President, should be fixed by Parliament. Now, in the course of the debate on other financial articles that took place last time, I said that it was not the intention to bring Parliament in the matter of the distribution, because we do not want that the distribution of revenue should become a subject matter either of log-rolling between different provinces or wrangling between the representatives of different provinces. We want this matter to be decided by the President or by the President on the advice of the Finance Commission. That is the reason why I am not prepared to accept Professor Saksena’s amendment.
Then I come to the point raised by my Friend, Mr. Maitra. His first argument was that he saw no reason why the Drafting Committee should now bring forth an amendment so as to change the original article. I am sure he forgot to refer to the recommendations of. the Expert Committee on Finance. If he will refer to that, I think that he will agree with me that it was the Expert Committee who recommended that the
- CAD, Vol. IX, dated 8th August 1949, pp. 259-61.