Lid off LTC racket: Govt, PSU employees to face CBI heat They Forged AI Tickets, Inflated Fares Josy Joseph TNN New Delhi: The CBI has been called in by the Central Vigilance Commission to investigate a widespread racket in claims of leave travel concession (LTC) involving central government and public sector employees and 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 wrung out of the government by producing fake Air India tickets and boarding passes (the only airline government and PSU employees are allowed to fly for LTC) with inflated fares. 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 Kolkata airport with more than 600 blank Air India boarding passes. He was to board a SpiceJet aircraft to Port Blair. On being interrogated, he claimed that he was to deliver these 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. TALL CLAIMS Kolkata police stumbled upon racket in March when they detained a flyer carrying more than 600 blank Air India boarding passes Air India’s vigilance division began probe and found that govt employees were forging boarding passes and tickets and inflating fares In March, Rajya Sabha secretariat asked AI to look into seven tickets. All found to be fake, mentioned non-existent business class for Port Blair. Each ticket priced at 1.35 lakh Over 400 employees of Ordnance Factory Board allegedly flew to northeast between 2006 and 2008. One forged ticket was priced at 2.11 lakh. Not clear how many actually travelled On Aug 16, Central Vigilance Commission asks CBI to probe racket Fabricating LTC claims a common practice, finds AI New Delhi: The probe into a vast LTC (leave travel concession) racket involving central government and PSU employees began with Air India’s vigilance division looking into more than 600 blank boarding passes seized from a flyer bound for the Andamans in March this year. 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. Forged tickets submitted to the RS secretariat, for instance, priced a ticket to Port Blair at Rs 1.35 lakh, while an employee of the Ordnance Factory Board claimed to have flown to the northeast at Rs 2.11 lakh. In March, the RS secretariat asked Air India for verification of seven tickets issued by a travel agency to secretariat employees on the Delhi-Kolkata-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.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 06:40:04 +0000
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