PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 889
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Now, Sir, what we have to do is to consider the grounds urged in support of these modification. It is said that banking is a very necessary industry or service for the development of India, its commerce and its industry. It is a thing, I think, which nobody would dispute, that banking is a very essential thing which ought to be sustained by all legitimate means. Secondly if the banks are necessary, then salaries and wage bills of employees must be so fixed that they will allow the banks to make a profit. That is the proposition, I think, which most people would question, but that is one of the foundations on which the modification rests.
The first thing to which I would like to draw the attention of the House is this. There is in existence today, in fact in operation, the Sen Award. It has been in operation since 1951. Its scales were certainly much higher than the scales of the Sastry Award. Now the point is this. This award given by Mr. Justice Sen in 1951 has been in operation and was put into operation by the Government by special ordinance, because the Sen Award was declared to be void, by the Supreme Court, on the application of certain bankers on the ground that there was some technical defect in its composition, and, therefore, the Sen Committee was not entitled to give an award. When the bankers had started reducing the salary of the employees, Government stepped in, and by an ordinance declared that the wages were frozen, that is to say, whatever was given to the employees under the Sen Award would continue notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court had declared the Award to be void. Now, Sir, that is one piece of evidence, I submit, which goes to show that the argument that this Award, if placed upon the shoulders of the banks, would not leave them with sufficient profits does not seem, to my mind, to carry any weight at all.
Then again, let us compare the figures which have been supplied by the Reserve Bank in a booklet, I understand, which is called, “The Trend of Events” or something like that. It contains figures from 1949 to 1953. I have taken out just the relevant figures. Now, in the case of A class banks, there is a fall in the working capital of 10 per cent gross