India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    145/552 page 115
    throughout India on a uniform system, and are more conveniently controlled by the central authority. Receipts and charges under the following heads are treated wholly or chiefly as imperial—Opium, Salt, Customs, Tributes from Native States, Post Office, Telegraph, Mint, the Public Debt, Railways, and Army Services. The revenues from Land, Stamps, Excise, Assessed Taxes, and other sources, are shared in vary- ing proportions between the Imperial and Provincial Governments. In 1900-01, out of a total gross revenue of £75,300,000, the Provincial Governments were en- trusted with the expenditure of £18,600,000.1 From this income they had to provide for the greater part of the expenditure incurred on the various departments of the civil administration entrusted to them; for the collection of the land revenue, for the courts of justice, jails, police, education, medical services, civil buildings and roads, and for a multitude of other charges. An arrangement is made under which each Provin- cial Government receives for a specified term, usually for five years, certain revenues from which it has to meet certain charges. The amount in each case is 1 Before 1873 the gold value of the rupee was usually not much less than 2s., or one-tenth of a pound sterling, and, until 1886, it was the custom, in the public accounts, to convert rupees into pounds at this conventional rate. Thus, for example, Rs.1000 was shown in the accounts as £100. In conse- quence of the great depreciation in the gold value of the rupee, to which reference will be made hereafter, it became impossible to maintain this system. The accounts were then shown in tens of rupees, and the symbol officially adopted to represent ten rupees was Rx. The rupee having now permanently obtained an approximate value of Is. 4d., the public accounts are shown at that ratio in pounds sterling, and the English sovereign is received at the Government treasuries as the equivalent of fifteen rupees. The system of cur- rency actually in force is explained in Chapter XIII. It will be understood that the great changes which have taken place from time to time in the gold value of the rupee, and in the unit adopted for the public accounts, make it almost impossible to draw comparisons, except approximately, between the figures of different periods.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image