Directions to Computer Science and Engineering Department Buildings from IIT Bombay Main Gate

Recommended reading time: 10 minutes. It will payoff for itself especially if you come during the monsoon, or during the vacation period on a hot summer, sultry day. This document gives a textual description of how to come to CSE dept buildings from the Main Gate. This page gives general information for getting to the main gate (skip to the end for the airport section.) Scroll down for schematic map but look at this for a satellite map from Google.

The main gate is the 2nd gate from the Gandhinagar flyover (most likely access from the Eastern Express highway). It is also the 2nd gate from the Western Express highway (most likely access from the airport). The first gate (known as Lakeside Gate at Punchkutir just past the last chance to see the Powai Lake) that you will pass coming to the airport is so obscure you are likely to miss it unless you watch out for it as an early warning!. The Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department is distributed over (at least) three two buildings.

  1. Directions to Kanwal Rekhi Building: Try this method first, and then read on.
    From the main gate, ask for directions to "cray-sit". This is the building across from (BOTH) Canara Bank (Gulmohar Bldg) and Hostel 10 (aka Ladies hostel). More specifically,
    Drive/walk along the (currently nameless, soon to be named as Palm) road starting at the main gate. Stay on the road until you reach the first major right (this intersection has the Canara Bank (Gulmohar) building, and it is about 600m from the main gate.) If you reached the main building, you have missed the intersection (the intersection is hard to miss.) At the Canara bank intersection, you can actually see the Rekhi bldg but you will need to take this first major right which is a wide (also nameless) road lined with large raintrees, and with a brick sidewalk on the left side (after you make the right). [Yes, the road will be called Raintree Road.] Walk/drive another 300m on Raintree road, and take the first left, turning through 120 degrees (yes Lucy, that's a huge turn!). Then follow this narrower (nameless) road until you see a building on your left. Opposite the building is the lecture hall complex.

    I am in the second floor (ground==0), A wing, room 202. The office is

    If you are here on the weekend, the entrance is through the covered parking lot. Also click here for KR Building which is building 37, close to Kendriya Vidyalaya IIT --- which is bldg 39). Dial 7901 for phone help (work days).

  2. Directions to "new CSE (Taj Mahal)" building. Fortunately, this is right next to the KR building, so the above directions work. This building also faces the (so-called) Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management building.

    For historical reasons, I list other buildings we have occupied in the past. You can stop reading this now!

  3. Directions to "old CSE (SK)" building.
    This was actually the new CSE building, and sometimes gets called so because CSE was in Maths building for a long time. This place is real complicated to get to, depending upon whether you are going to drive or walk, or bicycle! Ask for directions to the central library. If you want to walk, the simplest option is to walk for about 1.3km to the main building from the main gate, and you should be able to find the library. The building to the east of the main library is the Math dept. Further east, next to the Math dept is a "gray and dirty white bunker-like" building which is our destination.

    ViGIL is on the first floor of this building (Sen Kapadia building after the architect), with the access from the north side. F14 is the official number. The CSE satellite office is on the ground level (literally). Dial 7701 for phone help (during regular work hours).

    Also see this schematic map. SK Building is building 51, next to 17 (Math), which is next to 16 (Central Library). Click to zoom.

  4. Yet another home
    5. The third building is actually in the basement of the Math department (we just covered it in the previous step.)

The three building situation has been the status-quo for more years than I want to remember. The office shifted out of the Sen Kapadia building (after the architect SK) around October 2005 to the Electrical Engineering department (EE). It shifted back to the SK building around Feb 2007. Post merger with erstwhile KreSIT ("cray-sit"), the office headquarters moved (around the summer of 2007) to the Rekhi building, with a satellite office continuing in the old CSE (Sen Kapadia) building. Meanwhile, all along CSE department maintained its presence in the Maths building, primarily the basement. So you see, if you need to meet someone in CSE, you have to figure out where they work from. I agree that this is a very strange situation, especially for the "best" department in the institute, and most like in India (given the trend with JEE and GATE ranks).