Foreign trips on LTC likely soon

New Delhi: The Centre is working on a proposal to allow Central government employees to go abroad using their Leave Travel Concession (LTC). The department of personnel and training is said to have finalised a proposal in this regard and sought comments at the earliest from the home, tourism and civil aviation ministries and the finance ministry’s department of expenditure.

The proposal was initially moved by the external affairs ministry to include five Central Asian countries of  Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbek-istan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the LTC scheme of Central employees.

Officials said the proposed move will help these employees to not just visit foreign countries but also help increase India’s presence in what is seen as the strategically important Central Asian region.

In March, the government had dropped a similar proposal to allow its employees to visit Saarc countries. Under its LTC rules, eligible Central government staff are entitled to ticket reimbursement if they are travelling while on sanctioned leave.

Officials claimed that the proposal to allow government employees on leave to visit the Saarc countries was examined in detail by the Centre but the proposal was not found to be feasible, and hence it was dropped.

If the new proposal is cleared by the government, it will be a boon to a majority of 48.41 lakh Central government employees who are entitled to get LTC.