Ministry of Personnel decides to allow non entitled employees to travel by air and claim LTC restricted to fare entitlement.
New Delhi: All non-entitled central government employees have been allowed to travel by air while availingLeave Travel Concession (LTC) with a condition that reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled class of train or actual expense.
The Ministry of Personnel had recently eased norms for processing claims of LTC -- which allows grant of leave and ticket reimbursement to eligible central government employees to travel to their home towns and other places.
"Government employees not entitled to travel by air may travel by any airline. However, reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled class of train, transport or actual expense, whichever is less," an order issued by the Ministry said.
The move comes after the government received a number of queries in this regard. In many cases, employees did not have railway station or good road network to their home towns and they had requested for permission to travel by air to save time, which was being denied, officials said.
Now, they will be allowed to travel by air and by any airline, they said. At present, those entitled to travel by air have to mandatorily travel by Air India.
A government servant may also apply for advance for himself or his family members 65 days before the proposed date of the outward journey and he or she would be required to produce the tickets within ten days of the withdrawal of advance, irrespective of the date of commencement of the journey, as per the new norms.
There are about 50 lakh central government employees.
All central government employees have been asked to share photos and interesting details of their holidays.
The DoPT has decided to put a limit of one month for verification of LTC claim after the LTC bill is submitted by government employee for settlement and final payment.
"Efforts should be made to reduce the duration of processing of LTC applications or claims at the earliest. The maximum time limit should be strictly adhered to and non- compliance of time limit should be adequately explained," its directive said.
Source : http://zeenews.india.com/
DOP&T already issued an OM NO.
ReplyDeleteNo. 31011/3/2015-Estt (A.IV) dated 18.02.2016 on the Subject:-
"Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988 — Fulfillment
of procedural requirements"
In this OM, please refer para 14 to 16 of guidelines
14.Government employees not entitled to travel by air may travel by any airline,
however, reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled
class of train/transport or actual expense, whichever is less.
15.In all cases whenever a Govt. servant claims LTC by air, he/she is required to book
the air tickets either directly through the airlines or through the approved travel
agencies viz: M/s Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd/ M/s Ashok Tours & Travels Ltd/
IRCTC. Booking of tickets through any other agency is not permissible.
16.Travel on tour packages is not allowed, except in the case of tours conducted by
Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), State Tourism Development
Corporation (STDC) and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
(IRCTC). In such cases, only the fare component shall be reimbursable provided
ITDC/STDC/IRCTC separately indicate the fare component and certify that the
journey was actually performed by the Government servant and his family members
for which he/she is claiming the Leave Travel Concession.