Bruhaspati Samal
Secretary, AIPEU, Group-C
Bhubaneswar Division
While travelling up above the world so high enjoying the beauty of the blue sky, passing through the moving clouds, observing the magnetism of the green earth with panoramic rivers, hills and mountains sheltering exotic flora and fauna, Mr. Mohapatra became very emotional. Oh, the veritable paradise !Tears of joy rolled down from his eyes. For the first time in his life he availed flight travel to Jammu & Kashmir under Leave Travel Concession (LTC) which was completely unimaginable for him.
He told his wife and children, “My Department sanctioned me Rs.88000/- interest free advance for which I could be able to offer this facility to you all. Otherwise, a low paid employee like me had no hope to avail flight travel to J& K.”
Immediately his 17 year old son told, “ Dad, now our Hon’ble Prime Minister has also been very much generous towards the Central Govt. employees. Soon LTC will be extended to SAARC countries. Do you know?”
“Yes” - Replied Mr.Mohapatra.
“Then next time we must visit to Sri Lanka” – Proposed his 12 year old daughter.
“Oh ! Sure.” – Promised Mr.M ohapatra passionately with the decision to show his family at least one foreign country before retirement.”
Similar promises were made by so many Central Govt. employees to their family members.
Mr. A K Jena and Mr. R K Mohapatra, Postmen staff who were earlier working as Grameen Dak Sewak and never dreamt of availing such a facility, did avail LTC soon after completion of one year as Departmental employee and visited Jammu & Kashmir with their family members in a most delightful manner in flight taking 90% advance from the Department. Similar is the case of such low paid employees like Mr. Mohanty and Mr.Routray who travelled to Andaman & Nicober Islands taking Rs.75000/- each interest free advance and Mr. Pattnaik and Mr. Dash who availed the facility to North East India with their family members with Rs.60000/- advance each under LTC.
At the time of submitting the Memorandum to 7th Central Pay Commission on common issues concerning all Central Govt. employees, the Confederation of Central Govt. Employees and Worker had appraised the commission, inter alia to explore the possibility of allowing an employee to undertake tour outside India once during the service career in lieu of the Leave Travel Concession.
While oral evidences were going on with the CPC by several Unions/Associations/Federations and all Central Govt. employees were waiting for some good news from the CPC, their joy knew no bounds with the declaration of our Hon’ble Prime Minister in his maiden speech at SAARC Summit held in Nepal in November, 2014 emphasising with his soothing words the need for enhancing connectivity in the region. The civil aviation ministry gave its nod to a proposal to provide LTC for government employees to Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka to boost tourism in the region. It was told that Pakistan and Bangladesh were left out for now because of security issues and the new LTC Rules are being finalised by the Centre.
Everybody waited for the golden opportunity and good time to come.
But to the utter dissatisfaction and surprise of all Central Govt. employees, the 7th CPC which submitted its report to the Govt. on 19th November, 2015 narrated the provision of granting interest free advances to Central Govt. employees as irrelevant and outdated and recommended for abolition of such 12 interest-free advances including LTC and Tour. (Para 9.1.4 of 7th CPC Report).
Where are the good days? – all Central Govt. employees grumbled. The recommendations of the 7thCPC are certainly retrograde since employees’ welfare have been grossly ignored.
Mr. Mohapatra’s sweet dream to travel abroad was rattled into pieces in a moment. He became ashamed of his promises to his family. Now visit to Sri Lanka on his part is to build castles in the air. His light purse made his heart heavy.
“Will the new LTC Rule at all bring any benefit to the low paid employees ?” – he asked himself suffused with tears in his eyes. Can a low paid employee gather lakhs of rupees to book the tickets from his own pocket to avail LTC ?
Abolition of interest free advances is only intended to discourage to avail LTC. The proficiency shown by the Pay Commission through its analytical dexterity to save the costs involved in administering these advances in Para 9.1.4 of its Report is absolutely whimsical and thus an impediment to employees’ welfare.
In addition, now Govt has introduced a scheme for promotion of Adventure Sports and similar activities amongst Central Govt. employees by providing financial assistance to such eligible employees in the form of reimbursement of Travel Expenses, programme fee and Hiring Charges of equipment. (DoPT letter No. 125/1/2015-16-CCSCSB, dated 4th December, 2015).
Presently, an amount sufficient to cover the officials’ personal travelling expenses is being sanctioned as interest-free advance to be adjusted immediately after completion of the scheduled tour. But if the Govt follows the recommendations of the 7th CPC, nobody will be interested to avail such facility also.
While the Govt. is declaring several welfare activities on one hand to gain popularity, recommendation of the 7thCPC for abolition of advances to avail such facilities remains quite jeering and unenthusiastic.
The Govt. needs to address this issue carefully before implementation of such exceedingly regressive recommendations.
******
