Leave

How many days of leave? Under what conditions? What about LTC, sabaticals, medical emergencies? Institute has put out a booklet on leave rules; this should be available in the department office. Basically, central government rules apply, plus some special provisions for teaching faculty. Government rules provide 12 days casual leave and 30 days earned leave every year. Earned leave can be carried over subject to a maximum accumulation of 150 days. Weekends and holidays in the middle of a leave period are chargeable; thus, if you take Friday through Monday off, you will use up four days of leave, while taking Friday through Sunday off will use up only one day of leave. This is the prefix/suffix holidays provision. Casual leave cannot be taken if the length of absence (including prefixed/suffixed days) exceeds five days; for absence exceeding five days and for availing LTC, one must take earned leave. Since teaching duties do not exist around the year, special rules apply for earned leave for faculty. Every year, Institute declares a set period of 90 days a year as vacation period for teaching staff; this is usually split as 30 days in winter and 60 days in the summer break. Of this 90 day period, 30 days are working days for faculty - the actual days are self declared. Faculty can choose to take all the remaining 60 days as vacation and not get any earned leave. Every 2 days you work during this 60 day vacation period will yield one day of earned leave. So if you work through without any vacation, like non-teaching staff, you will get 30 days earned leave. There is medical leave which can be availed with the submission of a medical certificate. The duration of medical leave permissible depends on the medical conditions. Then, there is half-pay leave and even something called leave not due (taking leave when you dont have any to your credit). Practically, teaching faculty have enough to do even during non-teaching periods and dont use up all the leave available. Forms to be filled for availing casual leave and earned leave are available in department offices; on returning from earned leave, one has to file a form to re-join duty. LTC: Due to budget crunch, central government has suspended LTC except for those who are having their last chance to avail LTC before retirement. For the purpose of LTC, one has to declare a home town on a form filed at the time of joining. One is allowed to change this home town declaration once during service. LTC can be availed once in two years to visit home town or once in four years to visit any place in India. LTC will pay the cost of transportation for the employee and dependants to the place of visit by the shortest route. Profs are eligible to fly to the nearest airport and others can travel by First Class or AC Sleeper to nearest railway station (Asso. Profs are eligible for First AC). The journey can be completed by road, by AC bus. For the purpose of LTC, a working spouse is not a dependant (unless that employer has no LTC provision and some declaration can be given to that effect). Sabbatical: IIT provides sabbatical leave of upto one year for teaching faculty at the completion of six years of regular service (visiting appointments are not considered regular service). Sabbatical can be used to visit a host academic or research institution in India or abroad. There is a departmentwise cap of 15% of strength who can avail sabbatical at any given time (so, in theory, everyone can avail sabbatical once in seven years). IIT will continue paying full salary and you can retain your quarters during the sabbatical; your host institution cannot give you a salary - but can grant you a living allowance (what this means is that your offer letter from the host institution cannot offer you a visiting position with a salary, but can offer you a visiting position and grant you a living allowance during your visit). One has to apply sufficiently in advance to get the sabbatical leave and the home department is not entitled to any compensation - the rest of the faculty will have to bear the burden of the teaching load. The Board of Governors of the Institute is the sabbatical leave granting body. EOL: There is one other clause under which faculty can spend time at other institutions - by availing extra-ordinary leave or EOL. There is a career limit on the number of occasions and total duration of EOL, but these can be waived by the Board of Governors depending on the assignment that the faculty member is taking up. This clause is used, for example, when a faculty member goes to another IIT as Director - or some such similar prestigious assignment. The home institution (IITM) will not pay any salary during EOL periods, but one can accumulate service credit by remitting the appropriate share of GPF/CPFG to IITM. Since IITM is not paying any salary, there is no bar on drawing a salary from the host institution. One can use this clause to be a visiting faculty with salary at another institution. This is the so called foreign service provision, which usually finds a mention in your appointment letter.