The Centre on Monday asked Government employees to share their photos and interesting details of holidays availed through lTC (leave Travel Concession) and relaxed some other norms, a move seen as yet another initiative to de-stress its employees. Earlier, the Government allowed staff to participate in adventure sports for which they would be granted leave and also some token amount.
lTC allows grant of leave and ticket reimbursement to eligible Central Government employees to travel to their home towns and to other places.
Also to empower employees and to develop a habit of “faith”, the Government allowed employees to self-certify details before proceeding on a holiday, which is a departure from informing their controlling officers.
There are about 50 lakh Central Government employees. Under the existing rules, Government servants are required to inform their controlling officer before the journey on lTC is undertaken.
“Employees may be encouraged to share interesting insights and pictures, if any, of the destination he or she visited while availing lTC on an appropriate forum,” the rules finalised by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) state.
Against the backdrop of misuse of lTC and people availing foreign packages, the DoPT circular said travel on tour packages would not be 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).
It further said all lTC claims will be settled in a maximum of one-month time. An additional 10 days will be given to settle dues related to lTC travels by an employee in case he is posted away from the headquarters.
“Sometimes, Government servants claim that failure to follow the correct procedure was on account of a lack of knowledge of the rules while in the other cases the delay is caused in the late processing of lTC claims. To remove these bottlenecks, this department has decided to simplify the procedure of application and make the procedure time bound,” the DoPT said. It has sought comments from all concerned on the new guidelines within 15 days.
In the new guidelines, the DoPT will be reminding Government officials entitled to travel by air that they “are required to travel by Air India only in economy class” unless permitted to do so by any general or specific provision. “Officers not entitled to travel by air may travel by any airlines, however, reimbursement in such cases shall be restricted to the fare of their entitled class of train or actual expense, whichever is less,” it said.