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3  When You Join

Keywords

IIT Bombay joining, new faculty IITB, appointment formalities, campus housing, faculty onboarding

Welcome to IIT Bombay’s faculty fraternity! The Institute promises you interesting times ahead. Setting up home and workplace might appear to be a tough proposition at first, but the Institute administration is constantly improving its systems and processes - in particular, to smooth the transition for new faculty - and is open to your suggestions in this regard. The Head of your academic unit is officially your liaison with the Institute and, as such, may be freely approached for help if you face any issues. Also, most senior colleagues would be more than happy to guide and help informally - please do not hesitate to ask! What follows is a quick look at what you need to do just before and after your arrival.

3.1 Joining and settling down

Once you have decided on the date of your arrival, please write an email to your Head of the academic unit with a copy (cc) to the Dean (FA), requesting her/him to arrange an accommodation in the Institute Guest House, where you can check in upon arrival. You may also request to arrange for a transportation to bring you to the campus from airport/railway station.

The Institute provides a relocation allowance of up to ₹ 5,00,000/- for faculty returning from abroad as reimbursement of air fare for self, spouse, two children younger than 18 years, and transportation of belongings. The limit is ₹ 1,50,000/- for faculty joining from within India. These rates apply to faculty who join on or after 06.12.2024. (Source: Circular No. REG/O-2/2025 dated 09.01.2025.) As soon as you complete the joining formalities and relocate, you may submit the receipts and air tickets to claim this allowance. Settling accounts on time applies to all financial transactions!

If you are joining as an Assistant Professor, you are eligible to receive the Young Faculty Award (YFA) endowed by our alumni. Please do spend a few minutes to send a letter of appreciation to our Alumni Association - through the Office of the Dean (ACR). The paperwork for the YFA requires a legal process called Franking that can be completed with the assistance of the Administration Section in the Main Building.

The Board (269th meeting, 21.06.2024) renamed the Young Faculty Award as the Young Faculty Fellowship: ₹3 lakhs per annum for 4 years, accorded to newly appointed Assistant Professors and Associate Professors. The existing rules of the Young Faculty Award continue to apply. (Source: Circular No. Reg/F&SS/2024 dated 15.01.2025.)

The relocation allowance and YFA are also admissible to Assistant Professors (Grade - II), appointed through statutorily constituted selection committees.

The following are the things to do immediately after joining. As you embark on the necessary running-around, it is better to call the concerned office before you land up (here, to that end, is a link to the Institute’s telephone directory).

Immediately on joining:

  1. You have to make a visit to the Administration Section in the Main Building to complete the joining formalities. For this purpose you need:

    1. Original and copies of all academic certificates from SSC (10\(^{\text{th}}\) Board) to PhD and proof of date of birth.
    2. Several passport size photographs for various purposes.
    3. If you were previously employed, a certificate stating that you have been relieved of your position there. Proof of last drawn salary may be also be submitted.
    4. Bank details.
    5. PAN card.
    6. Aadhar card.

  2. The Administration section will, in turn, give you several letters and forms. Two letters of immediate importance are the ones to: (i) Associate Dean-II (IPS), requesting that a quarter be allotted to you and (ii) IIT Hospital, to certify that you are medically fit.

  3. Please take the Accommodation Committee letter to the office of the Associate Dean-II (IPS) where your options for ad hoc accommodation will be explained to you. At the time of writing, most new faculty members spend the first few years in off-campus accommodation. This could be an accommodation already leased out to IIT Bombay, or one of your choice that you can get IIT Bombay to lease for you. IIT Bombay will take care of the rent up to a limit of about ₹ 55,000 per month, which should get you a flat in the vicinity of the campus. If you are keen to stay on-campus, you may be allotted a Staff Hostel flat/quarter - 1 BHK (1 Bedroom, 1 Hall, 1 Kitchen) allotted to you, based on the availability of rooms.

    After two to three years, you may expect to get a better accommodation on campus allotted to you as ‘regular accommodation’. (If you happen to have joined the Institute directly as a Professor, you may be eligible to get a C-type quarter - 2 or 3 BHK - as your ad-hoc allotment). Regular accommodation is done by a seniority rule (for details, please see Seniority and Allotment Criteria).

    The on-campus quarters do not come furnished and you will have to furnish it yourself. A home telephone connected to the internal exchange will be provided which does not have external call facility. You may decide to get a personal landline or mobile phone connection either from MTNL or from one of the other private operators. The Manager Telephones, whose office is in the Telephone Exchange (Main Building) generally would be able to share information of some special mobile plans for IIT Bombay Faculty and Staff. Your quarter would also have internet facilities connected to the Institute network.

    Please retain your accommodation allotment letter in a safe place, as it will serve as proof of address for various purposes; in particular, it will come in handy for various purposes like applying for a LPG cooking cylinder connection, opening a bank account etc. Keeping a scanned copy for easy access is highly recommended, so that printouts can be taken on demand.

    For more on housing related matters, please refer to the relevant section of the appendix.

  4. An LPG connection is essential if you plan to cook at home. The simplest way is to take your accommodation allotment letter to Maharashtra Gas Service, which is located in the building known as ‘Powai Plaza’ on the main road outside IIT (Adi Shankaracharya Marg or Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road - JVLR). The gas connection comes in a few days and the hard copy record thereof can serve as an address proof in most places.

  5. The letter to IIT Hospital is to be presented to the Hospital reception, where an appointment will be scheduled for your medical examination. Please proactively follow-up with the hospital to get the tests done in a timely manner.

  6. There are a few more forms to be filled up, viz. an attestation form, a form declaring your dependents, a form for joining the New Pension Scheme (NPS) and Group Term Scheme Insurance (GTIS).

    1. New faculty have to join the NPS mandatorily, details of which are given in a the chapter on retirement benefits. (For people who joined before 1\(^{\text{st}}\) January, 2004, there was a Pension scheme or a non-pension Contributory Provident Fund).

    2. You also need to join the compulsory Group Term Insurance Scheme (GTIS) and the premium for this will be deducted from the monthly salary.

    Please find an earlier circular on the Group Term Insurance Policy here. You also need the nomination form.

    The policy was renewed with LIC for 01.11.2026 to 31.10.2027 at a premium of ₹16.92 per lakh per month, deducted from salary. New employees are covered automatically from the 1st of the month following joining. The sum assured depends on Cost To Company (CTC): ₹1.2 crore for CTC of ₹20 lakhs and above; ₹1 crore for ₹16–20 lakhs; ₹50 lakhs for ₹8–16 lakhs; ₹35 lakhs for ₹5–8 lakhs; and ₹20 lakhs below ₹5 lakhs. It is life insurance only, with no savings element. Nominations can be submitted online. (Source: Circular No. AO/Admin/GTIP/2026 dated 13.10.2026.)

    1. Attestation Form is to be filled up so that the Institute can do a mandatory background check. You will have to provide all addresses where you have resided during the preceding five years. A clearance from the police is mandatory before your services are made permanent (a process termed as confirmation).

    2. You will have to make a declaration of your dependents who will be eligible for various service facilities like Leave Travel Concession, medical benefits etc. Your spouse is treated as a dependent, whether employed elsewhere or not. Sons are dependents till the age of 25 or till they start earning, whichever is earlier (no age bar for permanently disabled sons). Daughters are considered dependents till they start earning or till they get married, whichever is earlier. You can declare your parents as dependent provided that they do not have independent income exceeding a certain limit as per prevailing policy (about ₹ 120,000 per annum at the time of writing).

  7. Now that you have completed the formalities of Administration Section, please return to your academic unit and fill up a joining report form which will be signed by the Head of the academic unit and sent to the Administration. The academic unit will provide you with an office space equipped with a telephone (with limited local and long distance calling facility), a personal desktop computer or laptop with printer and internet connection.

  8. Once the Administration processes your joining report, intimation of your having joined is sent to various sections such as the Library, Security Section, Hospital etc. Identity cards will be issued to you and family members after a visit to the Security section, located on the ground floor of the Main Building. For the employee, the identity card doubles as the Library card as well. You will have an employee salary code number that is needed for all payments and financial transactions within the Institute.

  9. After joining formalities are completed, you may have to pay attention to other important matters, like getting your child/children admitted to a school. The campus has two schools: one PM Shri Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School), affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the other, the Campus School, affiliated to the Maharashtra State Board. Campus School is exclusively for the children of IIT Bombay employees. The Campus School also has a kindergarten school for children above the age of three. There are also several private schools in the Powai area, including Podar International School, Bombay Scottish Scool, Gopal Sharma International School, and more. For younger kids there is a private creche (Shishu Vihar, located at the time of writing in bungalows A-4 and A-5 in the Lakeside area of Campus near the Main Gate) and run by an NGO. Detailed information on all of the above is provided in the appendix.

  10. You will need to apply for a Permanent Account Number (PAN) (if you don’t have one already), which is used to file income tax returns. You need to provide copies of your photograph and address proof for the same. It may also be possible to get the PAN card online at this website.

  11. Among the first things you will want to get is a mobile connectivity. As much for communicating with family, friends, colleagues and students as for the fact that it is the preferred medium of authentication for many kinds of digital transactions (through a One Time Password, or OTP). The Manager (Telephones) in the Institute (internal number 8997), next to the Exchange in the Main Building, can help you to get a prepaid or postpaid mobile connection (prepaid or postpaid).

  12. If you do not already have one, it is advisable to also get an Aadhar card (see https://uidai.gov.in/). The Administration Section will be able to provide you with details of the nearest data collection center at which an application can be lodged. The post-office in campus accepts Aadhar applications.

  13. You need to open a bank account where your salary will be deposited. There are branches of two banks on campus, viz. State Bank of India and Canara Bank. Please drop in there with your identity proof and a photograph and open a bank account. There are several private banks (HDFC, ICICI, Axis Bank, South Indian Bank), public sector banks (e.g. Oriental Bank of Commerce, Andhra Bank, Vijaya Bank etc.) and foreign banks (HSBC) around IIT Bombay, particularly in the area known as Hiranandani Gardens. However, please note that salary is normally credited to either Canara Bank or State Bank of India accounts.