With all this when that first stage has been finished the second stage is a very important part and that is we have to administer these States efficiently. Personally my view is that some of the States which are on the border should be merged with the adjoining provinces; by merging into the adjoining provinces they will certainly come into the progressive parts of the provinces. This has been done in some cases, but not in many cases Eventually that should be the best course, but there are certain States which have to remain independent, as for as for instance Rajasthan. Rajasthan, as you know, is a scattered Rajputana State and I do feel that the Centre must keep their hold. I am myself proud to see Rajasthan become the biggest Rajasthan. but I am very sorry to say that the administration there is not quite good and when I was appointed as a member to investigate the wishes of the people of Bharatpur and Dholpur a member to investigate the wishes of the people of Bharatpur and Dholpur of course, my personal view is different- they wanted to join the Rajasthan. and the State Ministry resolved that they should be merged with Rajasthan. I do not find fault with the State of Rajasthan, because there are no proper people available for the administration of the States and it is not their fault. They were not trained. You can very well understand Sir, we in the provinces, those who have been in the local bodies, in the municipalities, had a good training. They knew the municipalities are the first training for a citizen to take charge of the basic administration and therefore, Sir, I have made a suggestion in my amendment that while the control shall be there, the “control” in the sense that has been explained by the Honourable Sardar Patel yesterday will, be only when the necessity arises. During that period, I desire that the local body should be immediately formed, a full-fledged local body should be immediately formed, laws should be passed and they should be put into operation within one year from the commencement of the Act, so that people may know really what is an administration, what are the franchise, what are the powers, what are the rights and what are the privileges in a small sphere, in their own town, in their own villages. When they come to know that really a local body is a thing where also a small city or a small town has to be governed by themselves, they will create for themselves good administrators for administering their own State. At the same time we shall have very good ministers to take charge of the administration and bring these States into life with the provinces. I hope my friends from the States will not misunderstand me when I support the proposition for control for 10 years. After all it does not look nice that they should be under the existing conditions when we are all free and when we want absolute control, there should he some control from the Centre. I do not share the view that there should not be any control on any free local bodies. Today all local bodies, municipalities, corporations are all governed by certain Acts and I can tell you, Sir, that even in a corporation like those in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, the Provincial Governments have a control. At any time if they feel that the administration of the corporation is going wrong, they have the power to intervene. The whole position, therefore, is for the purpose of this Act to intervene in case of necessity just as in the Calcutta Corporation. The Calcutta Corporation’s business was very wrong and therefore, there was a provision in the Act that the Government can intervene in the event of the administration not functioning properly and the Government of Bengal took charge of the Calcutta Corporation, one of the biggest corporations. As you may know, Mr. President, the administration of Calcutta Corporation has been taken under the control of the Government. There is nothing wrong in it. After all it is our Government now. There was the stigma in pre-independence days and I myself was fighting when such a control was under the British Government. I said then that our opportunity should be given when they do not function properly, an opportunity should be given them a second time to improve. I do hold that view that even before the suppression of any local body opportunity should be given by the Government to improve. When they continuously go wrong, then the control should be taken by the Centre. Similarly, I am sure, Sir, that when an occasion arises when anything is going wrong in the States the Centre should give a warning to that State and if the State does not improve and continues in that condition, then the Centre will certainly have the right to intervene and in the interests of the whole country-not only in the interest of the State alone,-the Centre will be justified in taking possession of that State. I therefore say that those States which are very backward in those states municipal laws should be passed immediately so that they may have a first- class training. If they have three or five years term of office, they can very well advance (Interruption).
