LTC Scam Case involving Higher Officials of Central Government
Departments and PSUs which was referred to Central Vigilance Commission (CVC),
has now been handed over to CBI as reported in leading News Papers. CBI will
call the shots hereafter in this alleged misuse of Leave Travel Concession
(LTC) in large scale by claiming LTC using forged Air tickets and boarding
passes.
These fraudulent activities have been alleged to be committed by central
Government and PSU in the ranks of under secretary and above.
Times of India reports in this matter as follows
The CBI has been called in by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to
investigate a widespread racket in claims of leave travel concession (LTC)
involving central government and public sector employees as well as travel
agents.
The CBI, which was asked on August 16 by CVC to carry out a criminal
investigation, is likely to question dozens of such employees. Large sums are
said to have been siphoned out of the government by producing fake Air India
tickets and boarding passes (the only airline that government and PSU employees
are allowed to use for LTC).
A sizeable number are of the rank of under secretary and above. Most of
them claimed to have travelled with their family to the extremities of the country — the northeast, Kerala
and the Andamans. The racket, said sources, has been one of the worst kept
secrets although there was no actionable evidence against it.
The Kolkata Police was the first to stumble upon the LTC racket in March
this year when it detained a passenger at Kolkota airport with more than 600
blank boarding passes of Air India. He was to board a SpiceJet aircraft to Port
Blair. On being interrogated, he claimed that he was to deliver it to someone
in the Andamans. The surmise is that this someone in the Andamans was to fill
up fictitious details of flights
there on the blank boarding passes. An investigation by the police is underway,
sources said.
Air India’s vigilance division began an investigation after the airline
was asked about the fake boarding passes. Initial inquiries by the airline
confirmed that it was a fairly widespread practice among government employees
to manipulate LTC by submitting forged boarding pass and tickets, and hugely
inflating fares.
In March, the Rajya Sabha secretariat asked Air India for verification
of seven tickets issued by a travel agency
to secretariat employees on the Delhi-Kolkota-Port Blair sector. Air India reported
back that the tickets and boarding passes were fabricated. “No such journey has
been undertaken by the seven people,” Air India said.
The fictitious tickets submitted to the RS secretariat turned out to be
a crude job — they included a business class ticket,
even though Air India has no business class
seats to Port Blair. Some of the boarding passes had the same
number, even same seat numbers. And each ticket was for Rs 1.35 lakh, although
the fare on that particular day was nowhere near that amount.
Air India also carried out an internal investigation into another
complaint, this one from the Ordnance Factory Board. From the Board’s Jabalpur
plant over 400 employees and their families ostensibly travelled to the
northeast to avail LTC between 2006 and 2008. Under a special order of the government to promote tourism in
northeast, even the lowest ranked government employees and their families can
fly to northeast sector and claim airfare under LTC.
A ticket submitted by a Jabalpur employee was found to have been valued
at an incredible Rs 2.11 lakh; it’s hardly surprising that it turned out to be
a forgery. While the e-tickets were definitely forged, it is still not clear
how on many of these tickets people actually travelled.
It is suspected that some of these tickets may have been bought by cash
by travel agents from Air India. And then they may have created forged
e-tickets, showing higher fares. Whatever may be the case, the CBI is expected
to investigate all the 400 families that travelled to northeast from Jabalpur,
sources said.
Sources also said the LTC racket appears to be rampant across government
departments, public sector units, and public sector banks.
It also appears that many officials submit forged boarding passes and
e-tickets of travel between Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram, while they are
actually travelling to Colombo or Singapore. In other words, on the basis of
their LTC claims, employees are undertaking foreign trips, which this facility
doesn’t allow.
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