Leave Travel Concession to West Bengal Government Employees

Entitlement of the benefit:

The State Govt. employees may be allowed the benefit of leave travel concession once in service career, but the benefit may be availed of by them during the period of five years preceding the actual date of retirement on superannuation. The employee who has been duly permitted to retire voluntarily, may also be allowed to avail of the benefit before his such retirement.

Kinds of Journeys available:

The employees who will be entitled to the leave travel concession, will be granted the concession for the following kinds of journeys:

• For journeys to respective home town and back, provided the home town is different from the place of posting; and
• For journeys to any place in India and back.

‘Family’ for the purpose of leave travel concession:

• The leave travel concession sanctioned hereby will be admissible to the members of the family of the Govt. employee and for this purpose the term ‘family’ will bear the same meaning as defined in para-10 of the Annexure to Finance Deptt. Memo No. 4730-F dated 25.5.1999.
• When the Govt. employee is entitled to leave travel concession, the family members need not compulsorily accompany the Government employee; they will get the concession independently irrespective of whether the Government employee avails himself of it or not. The members of the family may either travel together or separately in different Groups as may be convenient to them. The Government employees and/or member(s) of his/her family may visit the same place or different places of their choice.
• Where a Government employee and his family perform journeys separately, in different groups at different times there may be no objection to their presenting separate claims, provided the journeys are performed during the currency of the period during which it is due.

Declaration of place of visit:

When the concession to visit ‘home-town’ or any place in India is proposed to be availed of by a Government employee or any member of the family of such Government employee, the intended place of visit will have to be declared by the Government employee in advance to his Controlling Authority. The declared place of visit may be changed before the commencement of the journey with the approval of his controlling authority, but it may not be changed after the commencement of the journey except in exceptional circumstances where it is established that the request for change could not be made before the commencement of the journey owing to circumstances beyond the control of the Government employee.

Mileage Allowance and Class of accommodation:

• For journeys to home-town and back and to any place of India and back on leave travel concession, the State Government employees will be entitled to undertake journeys by rail in the following class of accommodation according to their pay range:

Note: For Journeys to home-town and back or to any place of India and back on L.T.C., Government employees may be allowed to travel by higher class of accommodation by rail or ship, but the re-imbursement will be limited to entitled class of fare(s).

• For journeys to place like Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and ‘Lakhadweep’ Group of Islands by ‘Ships’ operated by the Shipping Corporation of India, entitlement of class of accommodation according to pay ranges will be as follows:

Note: For journeys to any place in India including Port-Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Group of Islands, the Government employees may be allowed to avail journeys by National Carrier or Private Airlines in the lowest class of accommodation, but re-imbursement will be limited to entitled class of accommodation by rail or ship.

• For journey to Agartala in Tripura since surface routes are circuitous and troublesome, the State Govt. employees who will select that place for visit on leave travel concession will be allowed to travel by air in economy class subject to the condition that the journeys will have to be performed by a national-carrier.

Note: For journeys to Agartala in Tripura, Government employees may be allowed to undertake journeys by Private Airlines in the lowest class of accommodation, but the re- imbursement will be limited to entitled class of accommodation by the National Carrier or actual fare for the journeys performed by Private Airlines, whichever is less.

• For journey to places in India including popular hill stations which are not connected by rail and so in such cases where road journey is unavoidable, besides the railway-fare as will be admissible, public transport from the rail-head to the actual destination may be availed of subject to the condition that reimbursement will be limited to the fare for the cheapest mode of transport available for such road journeys.
• The leave travel concession will not be admissible if the journeys are made through some package tour agencies or by a private car or vehicle, owned by private operators. However, if the journey is performed by vehicles owned and operated by Tourism Development Corporations in Public Sector, State Transport Corporations and Transport Services run by other Govt. or local bodies to visit the declared place, the reimbursement will be either the actual hire charges or the amount reimbursable on the journey to the declared place of visit, had the journey been undertaken by entitled class by rail by the shortest direct route, whichever is less.

Admissibility of leave travel concession in case of the spouse of the Government employees:

The benefit of leave travel concession in case of the spouse of the Government employee will be regulated in the following manner:

• If the spouse of the Government employee is not employed, the benefit may be drawn as per the provisions made hereby in these orders.
• If the spouse of the Government employee is also a State Government, the benefit may be enjoyed by both husband and wife together as a one family unit in the Government employee’s family and in that case the spouse will give an undertaking that he/she will not prefer any claim in this behalf to his/her employer in future and that fact should be recorded in his/her Service Book.
• When the spouse of the Government employee is employed in the Central Government/Central PSUs/Corporation/Autonomous Body which provides LTC facilities to its employees and their families, the Government employee if enjoyed the benefit as a member of the family of the spouse will not be entitled to enjoy the benefit of LTC hereby sanctioned.
• When the spouse of the Government employee is employed in the State PSUs/Corporation/Non-Government aided Institutions/Autonomous Body where the facility of LTC does not exist, the spouse of the Government employee may be allowed to enjoy the benefit along with the Government employment as a member of the family subject to furnishing a declaration to his/her controlling authority that in future he/she will not enjoy the benefit of LTC, if the benefit is extended to the Organization/Institute in future be the Government and the said declaration should be recorded in his/her Service Book.

Reimbursement:

Reimbursement under the leave travel concession facility will not cover incidental expenses and expenditure incurred on local journeys. Reimbursement for expenses of journey shall be allowed on the basis of a point to point journey on a through ticket over the shortest direct route.

Grant of advance and adjustment thereof:

Advance may be granted to Government employees to enable them to avail themselves of the concession and the provisions for grant of advance as laid down in Rule 323 of WBFR Volume-I will apply in respect of such drawal. Drawal of such advance for the benefit of L.T.C. however, is subject to the following conditions:

• If the family travels separately from the Government employee, the advance may also be drawn separately to the extent admissible.
• In all cases, Railway/Bus tickets in original should be produced before the Controlling Authority within ten days of purchasing tickets. The Controlling Authority will keep photo copies of the tickets for future verification.
• The advance should be refunded in full, if the journeys are not at all performed within 60 (sixty) days of drawal of advance.
• Where an advance has been drawn by the Government employee, the claim for reimbursement of the expenditure incurred on the journey will have to be submitted within 1 (one) month of the completion of the return journey. On a Government employee’s failure to do so, he will refund the entire amount of advance forthwith in one lump sum.

References:

G.O. No. 9924-F dated 07.12.2005
G.O. No. 607-F dated 20.01.2006
G.O. No. 4367-F dated 13.06.2006