7th Pay Commission: FULL list of reliefs that Centre announced for central government employees ahead of Holi festival | Check in Pics

Income tax exemption on amount received in lieu of Leave Travel Concession (LTC) Scheme

Salaried class including central government employees need not pay income tax on the amount received against LTC (Leave Travel Concession). Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made the announcement in this regard in the Budget 2021. the center had given this income tax exemption to the central government employees on 12th October 2020 (FY 2020-21) in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. Since the Chinese virus is still around, the center has extended this income tax relief for all salaried taxpayers for the four year cycle of 2018-21. Photo: Reuters

Extension of period for repayment of LTC advance

The Government of India (GoI) announced to extend the period of repayment of LTC advance taken by the central government servant (CGS) for LTC (Leave Travel Concession) journey scheduled during the lockdown period (March to May 2020) till 28th February 2020. The Department of Training & Personnel (DoPT) has already issued Office Memorandum (OM) in this regard. Photo: Reuters

7th CPC Pension: Old Pension Scheme vs National Pension System (NPS)

The Ministry of Finance made its stand clear that scrapping of NPS is not considered a feasible proposition in the current scenario. While replying to the JCM on scrapping of National Pension System – Old pension scheme for all appointees on or after 1.1.2004, the Finance Ministry replied, "With a growing corpus, prudent investment norms and recent measures of the Government to streamline the NPS, it is expected that NPS would provide a comparable and decent replacement rate vis-a-vis Old Pension Scheme." The Ministry of Finance went on to add that with reference to the comparison between pension under NPS and Old Pension Scheme (OPS), it is mentioned that both the schemes are different in nature, structure and benefit, and hence, may not be compared. Photo: Reuters

Seventh Pay Commission: Ease in Travel Allowance (TA) claim rule

To provide relief to the central government employees, centre has changed the Travel Allowance (TA) claim rule for the government servants (CGS) as the CGS are not required to submit their Boarding Pass or ticket while claiming their TA. As per the latest communication from the Department of Personnel, now there is no need for the central government employees to submit their boarding Pass or travel ticket to claim their TA. In case, if a government servant has lost its Boarding Pass, in that case too, it will have to submit a self declaration form informing that it has travelled during a particular period. This self declaration by the employee that it has travelled is enough now. Photo: Reuters

Bill submission along with TA form is enough now

The central government employee will have to now submit bills along with the TA form duly signed by the Head of the Department (HoD). This is necessary for Under Secretary levels or below level employees under the Seventh Pay Commission and has a pay scale below Level-10 under the 7th CPC (Central Pay Commission) pay matrix. The employee will have to declare that in the case of providing wrong information, the government can take punitive action against him or her under the Central Civil Service (Clarification, Control and Appeal) Rules 1965. Photo: Reuters