“Go and tell the mayor (now in Brazil, attending a conference) to come and trace your file… I need time to get a hang of this job. If you are in a hurry, go get him (mayor) to do it’’.

The shout from an employee in the collection department of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s (CMC) borough XI office in Garia on Monday summed up the plight of the civic tax-payer held to ransom by a section of unionised civic staff members.

The slowing down of civic services — and the snapping at tax-payers — was part of a planned protest against mayor Subrata Mukherjee for a move to transfer many employees to new locations with “less attractive portfolios”.

There were angry exchanges in CMC establishments across the city where scores of tax-payers were harassed by civic employees at the wrong end of the largest transfer exercise since 1996.

With the mayor in Sao Paulo and municipal commissioner Debashis Som away in London, the civic employees slapped with shift orders are playing truant.

When reports of the employees’ go-slow reached the mayor in Sao Paulo, he even threatened a “lockout” at CMC offices — something he did once in 1974 when he was municipal affairs minister — if employees did not accept the transfer orders and stop harassing citizens.

“Why this fuss against transfers? Has any employee been transferred outside Calcutta? I will not hesitate to lock them out if this agitation continues to affect delivery of civic services to the citizens,” Mukherjee told Metro.

The mayor also threatened to “bring in non-government organisations and private agencies” to deliver civic services.

The anti-transfer voices hit a high pitch on Monday with South Calcutta Trinamul Congress MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay the most vocal.

“We will not tolerate their (Mukherjee and Som) policy of picking and choosing people for retrograde transfers. I have asked the controlling authorities to desist from giving effect to the transfer orders,” said Chattopadhyay, who is also general secretary of the CMC employees’ and workers’ union.

The unionised staff members of the CMC have planned protest rallies during recess at the civic headquarters on SN Banerjee Road from Tuesday, till Mukherjee is back from Brazil.

“We know how to tackle these employees,” said Sovan Chatterjee, member of the mayor’s council, overseeing water supply in Calcutta.

“As one looking after the affairs of the CMC in the mayor’s absence, I shall ensure that the transfer orders are executed without delay and that citizens are not harassed,” he stressed.