As per the Seventh Central Pay Commission, all railway employees are to be given the leave travel concession or LTC. However, the condition is that the employees have to surrender their Privilege Passes for the year in which they wish to avail the LTC. This condition was communicated via an office memorandum after the Department of Personnel and Training (DOP&T) had consulted with the Ministry of Railways on the subject.
As per the recommendations of the 7th CPC, the Railway employees were allowed to avail All India LTC as per the Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988, that is, CCS (LTC) Rules. However, the All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIFR) pointed out in a letter to the Railway Board that air travel entitlement was not admissible for LTC, which was not fair because the office memorandums issued by the Ministry of Finance and the DoP&T mention nothing about preventing railway employees of levels 6 to 8 from air travel.
Therefore, AIFR has requested the Railway Board to withdraw the condition that disallows level 6 to 8 railway employees entitlement to air travel. The AIFR maintains that in order to ensure that all employees are treated equally and in a just manner, they should all be allowed the same entitlements, including the All India Travel Concession facility, which can be availed once in four years against surrender of privilege passes. The present four-year block period for the LTC facility is 2018 to 2021.
