The great LTC racket: CBI called in to investigate fake tickets

In order to not lose out on their annual Leave Travel Concession it turns out several government employees may have been part of a racket that involved printing fake Air India tickets and boarding passes.

The racket, involving central government and public sector employees, as well as travel agents, has been unearthed and its scope is still not known. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate.

[caption id=“attachment_1052617” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The agents, in connivance with the passengers, would first book an Air India ticket to a popular holiday destination. The passengers would finally travel on cheaper flights. Reuters[/caption]

More from Economy

Inflation likely to be a big focus area for budget 2024, say sources Explained: Will the Bank of Japan break tradition and raise interest rates?

According to the Times of India, the CVC on 16 August asked the CBI to carry out a criminal investigation on the case, where large sums are said to have been siphoned from the government by producing fake Air India tickets and boarding passes. Air India is the only airline that government and PSU employees are allowed to use to claim LTC.

A sizeable number of such employees of the rank of under secretary and above are said to have claimed travel with their family, the report said.

The racket was first busted in March by the Kolkata Police who detained a passenger at Kolkata airport carrying 600 blank Air India boarding passes, as he was about to board a Spice Jet flight to the Andamans.

On being interrogated, he claimed that he was to deliver it to someone in the Andamans, where they would be filled with fictitious details of flights.

Air India’s vigilance division’s investigations confirmed that this was a fairly widespread practice among government employees to manipulate LTC by submitting forged boarding pass and tickets, and hugely inflating fares.

According to a TOI report in March, the airline suspected a modus operandi in which blank boarding passes, like those in possession of Verma, were used by unauthorised agents to generate fake travel records for government employees eligible for Leave Travel Concession (LTC) facility.

The agents, in connivance with the passengers, would first book an Air India ticket to a popular holiday destination, generate a blank boarding pass to be submitted under the LTC scheme (for the passenger to claim reimbursement from the government), cancel the booking and then get a ticket from another airline to the same destination, airline sources told TOI.

The TOI report also said:

It 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.