NHAI recommends tough action against officials in LTC scam

NEW DELHI: The National Highways Authority of India has recommended strong action against eight of its senior officials involved in the LTC scam, which includes recovery of extra expenditure on foreign visits and registering "adverse remarks" in their annual confidential reports (ACRs).

The scam relates to a trip to Port Blair on LTC by these officers, along with their family members, and clubbing their visits to Malaysia and Singapore, thus flouting rules. They are all in the rank of general manager and below.

Stating that visit to foreign countries can never be part of the LTC package, NHAI has suggested recovering "extra expenditure incurred on foreign visits from these eight officers".

"As proposed, an adverse warning should be recorded in their ACRs," NHAI CVO Satish Chandra said in an internal document of the Road Transport and Highways Ministry, which in effect could put the career of these officers at risk.

The official line is that since any "package" is not permissible under LTC and boarding and lodging cannot be separated, the entire amount is illegal.

The recovery of extra expenses would amount to over Rs 4 lakh.

While CBI and CVC had sought details from NHAI about such fraudulent practices in the organisation over the past few years, NHAI has decided to send a factual report to CVC on the recovery of the excess amount.

When contacted, a senior official who did not wish to come on record said the process has started to recover the amount from the officials concerned.