The offer letter

The offer letter arrives both by email and by snail-mail. However, the forms that you are required to fill out arrive only by snail-mail. Keep an eye out for latter as the recruitment office will march you up to the registrar before parting with a duplicate set of forms. The offer letter lists basic pay-scales as

Assistant Professor	Rs. 12000 - 420 - 18300
Associate Professor	Rs. 16400 - 450 - 20000
Professor	Rs. 18400 - 500 - 22400

with some mention of allowances. This is interpreted as a basic pay between the starting and the ending values, with a yearly pre-determined increment shown in the middle. The allowances work out as

Dearness Allowance	45% of basic
House Rent Allowance	30% of basic
City Compensatory Allowance	Rs. 300.00
Transport Allowance	Rs. 800.00

House Rent Allowance and Transport Allowance are given only to those who stay off campus. Dearness Allowance rate is revised by the Central government once in six months. As of October 2002, DA is 49%. Deductions on income include a Rs.100 per month professional tax (charged by the local government), income tax (see section on income tax) and faculty association membership of Rs. 10 per month (well, this is actually optional, but I dont know of a single faculty member who is not a member of the faculty association). There is also a mandatory basic life insurance scheme for which employees have to contribute Rs. 400 per month (this is actually a group savings cum life insurance scheme). Other perks that come with being a faculty member include a yearly book grant of Rs. 4000 and a monthly phone-bill reimbursement up to Rs. 750. The book grant is claimed by filing a claim letter once a year; the phone-bill reimbursement is also claimed by filing a letter (along with copies of phone bills, for completeness) once in six months, in the months of march/april and september/october. Your department office will help you with the form letters for these. The phone bill claim can include regular telephones and cell phones, but all the phones have to be in the name of the faculty member. There are other perks connected to sponsored research and consultancy projects. Visit the sponsored research office web site for further details (http://www.icsr.iitm.ac.in). Basic medical care is provided by the on-campus hospital, but one can also avail treatment at many major city hospitals and IIT will (partially) reimburse the costs. Malar Hospital (about 2 km from the gate in Adayar) is often chosen for its proximity and many opt for the prestigious Appolo Hospital. If you reside off-campus, you can avail the services of any government-service doctor who is also practicing privately. A major non-monetary perk is professional travel. IIT will bear the expenses of your travel to two conferences within India every year (to present papers), with better class travel for one of the two. Once in four years, you can also travel abroad to an international conference, provided you meet the journal paper publication norm for the previous three years. There are also several other programs that provide partial support for foreign travel and finally, one can charge domestic travel expenses to sponsored research or consultancy projects. There is also some provision for travel support if you need to visit a potential sponsor - take this up with your HoD and the two research Deans. Is there anything else? These are government pay-scales and non-negotiable. Your basic pay scale and the accompanying seniority will be determined at the time of appointment. As per rules, you need a Ph.D. plus three years experience to be appointed as Assistant Professor. If you have experience beyond this, you can expect to be given credit for it in the form of one increment per year of additional experience. There are restrictions on giving more than three increments at the time of initial appointment but if you can show the experience, you will get the credit; for example, I (PS) joined IITM seven years after I got my Ph.D. and I was placed in the Assistant Professor scale with 4 increments. IITM is rather strict in interpreting this. Other IIT's may be a bit more liberal and relax the three year rule or count experience in a generous manner. Asso Prof requires 8 years experience and full Prof requires 10 years experience. This needs to be filled out