New Delhi: The Central government has extended by two more years its scheme of relaxation of LTC rules allowing its employees to travel to the North-eastern
region.
The Department of Personal and Training issued a notice pertaining to the extension of Leave Travel Concession in view of the enthusiasm generated among the Central
government employees resulting in a very large number of families visiting the region in the past 20 months.
Union Minister of Development of North Eastern Region Bijoy Krishna Handique also had taken up the issue with Minister of State for Personnel Prithviraj Chavan to extend
the facilities which started about two years ago.
The extension is expected to give necessary fillip to the tourism potential of the Northeast and its economy. According to available data, the inflow of domestic tourists to the eight states of the region recorded a growth of 21 per cent in the past two years. 2009 saw a growth of 11 per cent in the inflow of domestic tourists over the previous
year.
This growth is chiefly attributed to the huge increase in LTC tourists since introduction of the scheme initiated by the Ministry of DoNER with effect from May, 2008. There was a total domestic inflow of 5.7 million tourists in 2009.
PTI
