Central staff get air travel sop to attract tourists to the Northeast

             The Union tourism ministry has renewed air travel concessions for central government employees to attract tourists to the Northeast.

An official statement issued here today by the tourism ministry said the government has relaxed Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988, to enable the central government employees to travel by air to the Northeast.

According to the proposal, group A and group B central government employees will be entitled to travel by air from their place of posting or nearest airport to a city in the Northeast or the nearest airport. The ministry said other categories of employees would be entitled to travel by air to a city in the Northeast from Guwahati or Calcutta.

All central government employees will be allowed conversion of one block of hometown LTC into LTC for destinations in the Northeast. This means that employees can use LTC meant to visit their homes for travelling to tourist destinations.

The minister of state for tourism, Sultan Ahmed, announced these decisions in a written reply in Lok Sabha recently. An official of the Meghalaya tourism department today said the initiative would definitely boost tourist flow to the Northeast, including Meghalaya.

Source : The Telegraph, November 28, 2011