Home Town Leave Travel Concession – Norms for Change of Home Town
Home Town Leave Travel Concession – Procedure to Change Home Town already Declared
Every Central Government Employee will be required to declare his/her home town while joining service. This declaration is required for the purpose of granting Leave Travel Concession for proceeding to Home Town. As per the amendment made in Rule 8 of LTC Rules, Fresh recruits to Central Government may be are allowed to travel to their home town along with their families on three occasions in a block of four years and to any place in India on the fourth occasion.
For other Central Government Employees Two trips of LTC to Home Town are permitted in a LTC block of 4 years. Some times on a casual approach, newly recruited employees may tend to declare the place of their first posting as their home town. But on a later when they want to utilize LTC to visit their actual home town it will be denied by administration on the ground that their home town and place of posting are one and the same. This will warrant for revising declaration of home town by the concerned government employee. There are also other situations in which a Government employee may intend to revise his/ her home town declaration. For instance, migration of father, mother or other parental family members from from the place where a government employee would usually reside but for his absence from such a station for service under Government may require an employee to opt for change of home town.
While ignorant fresh recruits declare their place of posting as home town, they not only loose the opportunity of visiting their native place availing LTC but also loose the opportunity of visiting North East Region and Jammu and Kashmir by air twice in a LTC block of 4 years by converting home town LTC. This is a special concession granted to Government employees in addition to one All India LTC to promote Tourism activities in those states.
However, a Central Government Employee has the option of revising his / her home town declaration once in his / her entire service.
Form for declaring home town (O.M.No: 43/15/57-Ests. (A) dated 24.06.1958)
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Here is the extract of Rule 5 of LTC Rules and O.M.No: 43/15/57-Ests. (A) dated 24.06.1958, which govern option for change of home town by an employee and verification to be made by approving authority when change of home town is sought by an employee.
Rule 5 of Leave Travel Concession Rules:
“The Home Town once declared and accepted by the Controlling Officer shall be treated as final. In exceptional circumstances, the Head of the Department or if the Government servant himself is the Head of the Department, the Administrative Ministry, may authorize a change in such declaration, provided such a change shall not be made more than once during the service of a Government Servant.”
O.M.No: 43/15/57-Ests. (A) dated 24.06.1958
“It is not necessary to have an elaborate check on the declartion of home town by an employee. The declaration made by the Government Servant initially may be accepted and a detailed check may be applied only when he seeks a change.
The Corrct test to determine whether a place declared by a Government servant may be accepted as his home town or not is to check whether it is the place where the Government Servant would normally reside but for his absence from such a station for service under Government. The criteria mentioned below may therefore, be applied to determine whether the Government servant’s declaration may be accepted –
(i) Whether the place declared by Government Servant is the one which requires his physical presence at intervals for discharging various domestic and social obligations, and if so whether after his entry into service, the Government Servant had been visiting that place frequently.
(ii) Whether the Government servant owns residential property in that place or whether he is a member of a joint family having such property there.
(iii) Whether his near relations are resident in that place.
(iv) Whether prior to his entry into Government Service, the Government Servant had been living there for some years.
NOTE: The criteria, one aftter the other need be applied only in cases where the immediately preceding criterion is not satisfied.
Where the Government Servant or the family of which he is a member owns a residential or landed property in more than one place, it is left to the Government to make choice giving reasons for the same, provided that the decision of the controlling officer whether or not to accept such place as the home town of the Government servant shall be final.
Where the presence of near relations at a particular place is to be the determining criterion for the acceptance of declaration of ‘hometown’ the presence of near relations should be a more or less permanent nature.”