Babus can soon firm up overseas holidays

Central government employees may get to visit South Asian nations barring Pakistan under the new Leave Travel Concession (LTC) rules being finalised by the Centre. Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said that a proposal in this regard is being finalised by the government. LTC allows grant of leave and ticket reimbursement to eligible central government employees.

The Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions said that the decision has been taken to promote people-to-people contact and boost tourism among the SAARC regions. SAARC- is a group of eight nations comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and India.

“One of the major decisions taken by the Narendra Modi Government soon after it took over was to extend the facility of conversion of ‘home town’ LTC to visit the States of Jammu & Kashmir, the North-eastern region and the Union Territory of Andaman & Nicobar for a further period of two years up to September 25, 2016,” said Singh.

The Personnel Ministry has been regularly reviewing LTC rules to allow Government employees to visit unexplored places such as the North-East. The Ministry is also considering allowing Government servants not entitled to travel by air to fly in economy class. 

The Ministry has of late put in place measures to check misuse of LTC facility. CBI is probing the fake travel bills scam (LTC scam) allegedly involving certain Government employees and present and former Members of Parliament.

“All the ministries or departments are advised to bring it to the notice of all their employees that any misuse of LTC will be viewed seriously and the employees will be liable for appropriate action under the rules. In order to keep a check on any kind of misuse of LTC, ministries or departments are advised to randomly get some of the air tickets submitted by the officials verified from the airlines concerned with regard to the actual cost of air travel vis-a-vis the cost indicated on the air tickets submitted by the officials,” said an order issued by the Personnel Ministry.