Puneculture & etiquette

Pune's employment is split between Hinjewadi in the north-west, Kharadi and Magarpatta in the east, and the Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial belt in the north. Crossing between them at peak is genuinely punishing — the Hinjewadi commute in particular is notorious, with a single access road serving a park employing hundreds of thousands. Choose your neighbourhood by which cluster you work in, and drive the route at the real hour before you sign anything.

Employment visa holders with a visa valid over 180 days must register with the FRRO covering their Pune address within 14 days of arrival. Fully online through e-FRRO, no agent needed. You need passport, address proof, appointment letter, employment contract and proof of annual income.

As in Mumbai, almost every let is an 11-month leave-and-licence agreement rather than a lease, used to stay outside rent control, and it must be registered with the state with stamp duty payable. Your housing society will also vet you separately from the landlord. The mechanics are identical to Mumbai's; only the prices are different.

The Permanent Account Number gates banking, salary and most financial transactions, and without it your employer must deduct tax at a higher rate. Foreign nationals can apply online. Start it in week one.

At 560 metres on the Deccan plateau, Pune is several degrees cooler than Mumbai and dramatically less humid, with genuinely pleasant winters from November to February and a monsoon that greens the surrounding hills without paralysing the city. For anyone weighing Maharashtra postings, this and the roughly halved cost of living are the case for Pune.

Pune has an unusual density of colleges and a very large student population, which shapes rents, the food scene and the social life — and means a distinct academic-year cycle in the rental market. It also means an unusually large international student community, particularly from Africa, Iran and Central Asia, and networks that come with it.