PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 839
which the Government has undertaken to relieve the people against the high cost of living. The subsidy, so far as our information goes, has been in operation…….
Shri B. B. Sharma (Uttar Pradesh) : What percentage of the population does the hon. Member want to be subsidised for food ?
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, my submission is this that he will not want me to go into the details of the rationing system. I do not want to go into details as to how the population should be classified so that we might be in a position to say that the following classes shall be subsidised and the following classes shall not be subsidised. That information Government has not placed before us. If the Government places that information before us, I certainly will be able to make such contribution as I can make to that proposal. For the moment I am saying this, that this reversal of the policy of giving subsidy seems to me an absolutely new thing. I find that from1946-47, when the subsidy made was 22 crores, it has increased in 1951-52 to
36 crores. In the last Budget which the Finance Minister presented to the Provisional Parliament for the purpose of obtaining a vote on account, he had estimated that the subsidy which he might be prepared to give in this year would come to about 25 crores. That was the estimate that he had made. I am sure about it that at the time when he presented the Budget he must have been ready in his mind to commit himself to that magnitude of expenditure. Suddenly thereafter we find this sudden change. Some reasons have been given. One reason is that the subsidy would come to about 55 crores. Some Members have said it would be about 90 crores. I do not know what the correct figure exactly is.. But I do want to say that even in the last Provisional Parliament, when the Budget was presented, Government was agreeable to take upon itself the responsibility of a subsidy to the extent of 25 crores. I do not quite understand why the Government has stepped aside from that promise, from that obligation. There are of course ……..