Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/46

 closer inspection of results. If a committee were fully trusted with the expenditure of its funds, and at the end of each year received praise for success and censure for failure, it would soon take interest in the performance of its duties. Instead of an Examiner of Accounts there would be appointed an Examiner of Works. At present it is only the accounts that are tested, and as these are far too technical for the native members of the committee to understand, their action never comes under review at all. If a work is carried out promptly and successfully, the committee gets no credit for it, but on the contrary is probably reprimanded as troublesome, for anticipating some purely frivolous routine formality, or for some such irregularity as failing to obtain a receipt for four or five anas from a carpenter or bricklayer on account of a day's wages. To use the emphatic words of the Provincial Committee on Education, the powers that ought to be enjoyed by local boards are "usurped by an arbitrary and overbearing department, at a great sacrifice of economy, and with the worst possible results to local convenience and progress." Nothing could be more pitiably unreal than the Committee actually existing. It is supposed to have at its disposal an annual income of over Rs. 70,000; but almost the whole of this considerable sum is absorbed by fixed charges, or has to be expended by departmental agency. A single item of about Rs. 3,000 for petty original works is all that the Committee can call absolutely its own, and can spend on projects of its own selection. If in any year this item is omitted from the budget, the Committee is then debarred from any the slightest exercise of independent judgment. Being entirely supported by arbitrary allotments, it gains nothing by judicious management; for whatever may be so realized, is merged in Provincial funds, and no benefit accrues to the district. With resources of its own, a more complete control over a less extended area, and a system of accounts which it could understand, the Committee would rapidly develope into a genuine district council, a seat in which would be highly coveted, not only as a personal distinction, but for the substantial responsibilities that it involved. The sense of local power would act as a strong stimulus to local usefulness, and spontaneous beneficial enterprise would relieve the State of many burdens now unfairly forced upon it. No reasonable person will voluntarily drop his money into the bottomless pit of a Government department, the mouth of which is so barred by checks and counterchecks that extrication can only be effected by much technical dexterity, and after the endurance of long delay. For example, a local