Bhavin Turakhia Led Zeta Launches First Paperless LTA Claims Platform In India

Mumbai-based Zeta, a fintech startup offering smart employee benefits for tax saving under its Optima brand, has launched the first, fully digital Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) solution. The new Optima LTA Card will help organisations manage employees’ leave travel allowance claims/ reimbursements digitally and enable employees to submit claims instantly.

As per an official statement, the LTA card is compliant with all legal mandates set by the Income Tax Department. Zeta team at the back-end will track the shortest distance between two destinations using a government-approved database and thereby enable accurate assessment.

Zeta was launched in January 2016 by Bhavin Turakhia, and Ramki Gaddipati, as a mobile-based meal voucher platform. The app provides HR Managers an instant one-click distribution platform of digitised meal coupons to employees across cities. These vouchers are a tax saving instrument as they are fully compliant with Income Tax and RBI laws as prescribed under the new RBI norms updated in December 2014.

As  Bhavin  said, “Optima LTA Card reinforces our commitment to make tax-saving solutions easily accessible for all. As our country is moving to a digital era, the digitised LTA solution is a good alternative to the otherwise process-plagued tax benefit solutions and is easy to manage for organisations and for employees to avail.”

Ramki further added, “We leverage a compliant database of a government carrier to verify all travel-related information including ideal routes, fares and so on. This ensures compliance to government mandates. Our state-of-the-art verification process of travel documents includes a thorough check by advanced bots to identify bill duplication if any; thereby, enabling a security-rich LTA claims process. The digitised solution will make it very easy for both employers and employees to keep a track of LTA claims.”

The Zeta app is supported on Android, Windows and iOS platforms currently.

Earlier in September 2016, Turakhia brothers-led technology company Directi also announced to infuse $110 Mn in four newer ventures including Zeta, a calling app called Ringo; a communication app Flock; and an internet domain-name registration company Radix.

Bhavin and Divyank Turakhia founded Directi in 1998. The Directi Group is a conglomerate of tech companies operating across India, USA, China, Dubai and Europe with current revenues up to $300 Mn.