IMAGINE a scenario where over 2,000 employees keep drawing their salaries for over three years with no work to do. The unbelievable has happened in the haven for white-collar workers, West Bengal. The state abolished entry tax or octroi in April, 1995, deciding to forgo a revenue income of Rs 350 crore every year. But the department employees continue to be on the rolls, pocketing a neat Rs 20 crore every year as wages.
And finance minister Dr Ashim Das Gupta has scrupulously avoided any reference to this paradox while presenting the Budget every year.
Curiously, when Jagdish Tytler, then Union minister for surface transport, proposed the abolition of octroi and appointed West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu to head a special committee to look into the matter, Basu was the biggest critic of the move, on the plea it would rob the cash-strapped state of a major source of income.
Yet nine months later, the state government issued an official gazette notification to announce the end of octroi. Party insiders reveal that intense pressure from local business circles was a major factor behind the about-face. "There were also allegations of corruption against some employees, and charges that items costing around Rs 3 at the point of entry into the state ended up costing the common man around Rs 6 on account of octroi and other levies. There was this feeling that it was helping neither business nor consumers," explained an official. Another disincentive was the long time—and consequent bottlenecks—taken by the staff to check the contents of the vehicles coming into the state.
So a bill to abolish the tax was passed in the 1995-96 Budget session of the assembly. Department insiders claimed that then finance secretary Ashok Gupta and director of the entry tax department N.C. Sen were not informed of the decision. Defending the official move, Dasgupta assured a deputation of employees that they would, before long, be absorbed in a new department.
The state government decided in 1995 to absorb the employees who reported to the six regional headquarters in a new revenue intelligence directorate. It took two years for the state to set up the new directorate, which came into being from April 17, 1997. The administrative structure was also announced. Under the director, there were six deputy directors, five assistant directors, 20 zonal officers, and 80 assistant zonal officers, besides 700 inspectors, backed up by clerks and sundry class III and IV staff. There were now 20 regional officers outside Calcutta.
Investigating personnel of the new department were given wide-ranging powers. They were required to monitor tax evasions and plug loopholes in collection from state and Central government institutions, banks, ports and railways. In Central government institutions, these people were supposed to work in tandem with their counterparts in pursuing investigations.
Impressive as all this sounds, the 2,000-odd employees have, far from pouring in oodles of cash into near empty official cashboxes, not yet worked for a single day. Most of the offices have yet to be opened.
Says one employee: "The finance department is still searching for suitable accommodation in central and north Bengal, where room rents have increased phenomenally. But whereas a modest establishment fetches around Rs 5,000-6,000 in the market, the department's conception of 'fair rent' does not allow it to go beyond the Rs 1,000-1,500 range. Naturally, office space is difficult to find. In Calcutta itself, not more than 20 former employees can be accommodated at any given time, all the space on the existing floors in the Lindsay Street office having been taken over by other employees."
"In fact," he adds, "our superiors have asked us not to bother too much about daily attendance, as our presence is an embarrassment to everyone. So, whether we want to work or not, we report occasionally for 'duty' which usually ends with a bit of gossip with friends over a cup of tea, a spot of carrom or table tennis, and then signing for the monthly pay. This leaves you free to earn whatever you can on the side, by teaching school students or going in for real estate business, selling homeopathic medicine. But, if you ask me, we would much rather go back to what we were doing earlier."
For a change, the employees are guilty about their own lack of work. Unfortunately, till now, it doesn't seem that the MIT-returned finance minister has anything up his sleeve for them.
