CALCUTTA, 9 March 2005 — A Cabinet minister in West Bengal has threatened to outsource revenue collection to a private agency to teach corrupt and thoroughly inefficient government tax collectors a lesson in the communist-ruled state.

Abdur Rezzak Mollah, a senior CPI(M) leader and land & land reforms minister in the Left Front government, warned yesterday that if his officers did not mend their ways he would employ a private company to carry out his department’s main duty — collecting land levies. At present, 3,500 government officials are assigned the task of collectiong land-related revenue in 18 districts.

Mollah and his staff are on a collision course after he launched a no-holds-barred drive against corrupt officials in his department. He says his objective is to weed out corrupt elements and collect more revenue for the state’s development.

The no-nonsense Marxist delivered the ultimatum when he chanced upon a leaflet circulating in his department urging officials not to cooperate with the “dictatorial” minister. “The leaflet says the officers are angry at my rude behavior with them and that my attitude is bound to affect work. They’ve hinted that land reforms and collection of land revenue will be hampered in future. I consider this a threat” the minister said.

Mollah incurred his officers’ wrath when he made a departmental delegation demanding higher wages wait for three hours before giving them a hearing. He told his men that he kept them waiting deliberately to make them appreciate the plight of common people who waited endlessly to meet government officials.

And rubbing salt in their wounds, Mollah said that they didn’t deserve a raise. “You are a bunch of thieves. Why should the government pay you more? In fact, I will recommend a salary slash to punish all of you”, he told union leaders to their face.

Yesterday Mollah categorically said that if his officials shun their duties, he would not hesitate to “employ private agents at the block level and even the village level to collect land revenue. The government can’t be held hostage by unions.”

He also warned that “government tax collectors will soon become a dying cadre which will be ultimately phased out”. “Initially, I might entrust them with some other duties but it’s the end of the road if they do not pull up their socks and do what they are paid to do.”

The minister said that his tax collectors terrorized small farmers and helped rich farmers who paid them bribes.

Mollah said that he was ready to face any consequences for taking on his men. “Even if my party tells me to spare them, I will not. They have crossed all limits.”

Recently, he suspended 10 officers in far-flung Purulia district after a team from Calcutta found that their office was locked until noon. Mollah ordered the land survey director — who paid a surprise visit on the minister’s instruction — to take departmental action against the whole Purulia office.