After a long wait, a good news related to the Seventh Pay commission has finally came for the railway employees.
The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), citing Seventh Pay Commission recommendation, said that they could now avail Leave Travel Concession (LTC).
However, it made clear that if a Railways employee has already availed of a Privilege Pass, then LTC would not be allowed in that year.
A railway employee or the entitled members of his/her family and dependent relatives as defined in the railway rules had been issued the privilage pass that comes with lot of exclusive benefits.
The Ministry said, "The matter has been considered in this department in consultation with Ministry of Railways. It has been decided that Railway employees may be allowed to avail all-India LTC once in a block of four years."
It also clarified that the 'All-India LTC' would be purely optional for Railway employees.
The DoPT order reportedly stated that railway employees would not be eligible for "Home Town LTC" and would have to surrender the Privilege Passes (concessional or free tickets) admissible to them in the calendar year in which they intend to avail the LTC facility.
The order said the Railway employees would continue to be eligible for other kinds of passes such as the duty pass, school pass and special passes on medical grounds, as admissible under the pass rules.
Meanwhile, various conflicting reports have been surfaced in media claiming that despite of the fact that government had denied any pay hike, salary hike and increase in fitment factor for employees upto the pay matrix level 5 would happen.
Quoting financial ministry sources, the report stated the government is ready to raise minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission for employees upto the pay matrix level 5.
Earlier this month, the government disappointed around 50 lakh government employees when it denied reports of any pay hike beyond the recommendations of the seventh pay commission.
