The government has hiked travel allowances for government officials for both foreign and domestic trips.

In the fourth amendment to the Travel Expense Regulation 2007, the allowance has been hiked to $250 per day from $200 for VVIPs. The allowance for special class officials stand at $200, up from $175, while non-gazetted fourth-level government officials will get $100 per day, up from $90.

VVIP refers to president, vice-president, prime minister, chief justice, speaker,

deputy prime minister and minister. Special class refers to secretary and officials of that level.

The officials get an additional 33 percent of the allowance if they travel to European countries, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Kuwait, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Qatar, Zambia, UAE, Singapore, Lebanon

and Bahrain.

The allowance for foreign trips will be cut by half is the visit is made to cheaper destinations like India’s Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangladesh’s Dhaka and Chittagong.  

The Financial Comptroller General Office had last year proposed hiking the allowances considering increased costs of travel over the last few years. The allowance for travel within the country has also been hiked. Daily allowance for VVIPs has been fixed at Rs3,000, up from Rs750 plus hotel bills. Special class officials will get Rs2,500, up from Rs1,700. The domestic visit allowance for first class staffers has been increased to Rs2,000 per day from Rs1,250. Non-gazetted fourth-level government staffers will get Rs1,000 per day from previous Rs600.

Previously, daily pocket money and expenditure for stay in hotels used to be distributed separately. In the revised regulation, both the expenses have been merged.  

The new regulation has reduced the percentage of additional benefits that one would get for visiting remote areas like Darchula, Bajhang, Bajura, Accham Jajarkot, Rukum, Rolpa, Humla, Mugu, Jumla, Kalikot, Dolpa, Mustang and Manang. Other remote districts included for additional benefits are parts of Gorkha, parts of Dhading, Bhojpur, Khotang, Okhaldhunga and Solukhumbu.

They used to get 20 percent of their daily allowance for pocket money excluding expense for hotel stay. As per the revised regulation, they will get 10 percent of the daily allowance.