Decode a CTC: why ₹6 LPA isn’t ₹50,000 a month
The first shock of every first job: the offer said ₹6 lakh, the bank credit says much less. Take a real CTC structure, decode every line with AI as your explainer — verifying every rule officially — and teach it to someone who doesn’t know it.
Posted by The AI Internships
The work brief
- 01Find a real CTC structure: a published sample offer, a family member’s (anonymised, with permission), or a realistic one from a careers site.
- 02Decode each component with AI’s help, but verify the rules against official sources: EPFO for PF rates, the income tax portal for slabs. Link your best source.
- 03Compute the actual monthly in-hand from the annual CTC — show every step.
- 04Teach it: explain the breakdown to a friend/sibling and record their 3 questions and your answers.
What you’ll produce
Submission standard
Submit the structure you decoded, your step-by-step in-hand calculation, the official source link, and the teach-back log. Include your AI workflow: the prompts that decoded each component and any rule you had to correct. Attach an anonymised screenshot or photo of the actual CTC/offer breakdown so every component you decode can be traced to a real document.
The CTC structure (anonymised) and where it came from
The anonymised CTC structure and its source. It must match, line for line, the offer/salary document you attach as proof.
Written responseRequiredStep-by-step: annual CTC → monthly in-hand, every deduction explained
CTC means cost to company: the employer’s total annual cost, not your take-home pay. Show how every component changes the monthly in-hand amount.
Written responseRequiredOfficial source you verified a rule against (EPFO/income tax portal)
Public linkRequiredThe teach-back: who you taught, their 3 real questions, your answers
Written responseRequired
You’ll complete these inside your private workspace.
What you must submit as proof
This brief requires evidence an AI can’t fabricate.
A screenshot/photo of the real CTC or offer breakdown you decoded — anonymised
Cover the employee name, employer name, employee ID, and any account number before you upload — only the component lines and amounts should be readable. Every component in your calculation must trace to this image.
Image uploadRequired
Submissions without this evidence cannot be submitted.
Protect other people in your proof. Blur faces, names, phone numbers and email addresses before you upload, and refer to anyone you worked with by role or number ("Listener 1", "the stall owner"). Your proof is only ever used to check your work — it is never published, never appears on your certificate, and is never shown in your public portfolio.
How your work is evaluated
The passing benchmark is 70/100.
Calculation accuracy
29%The in-hand maths is correct and every component is properly explained.
Officially verified
29%Key rules were checked against official sources, not AI’s memory.
Real teach-back
14%The questions read like a real confused human; answers are correct.
Verifiable structure
29%The decoded components trace to a photographed real offer/salary document and the numbers in the calculation match that image. An invented structure or a calculation with no document behind it fails, however tidy the maths.
How we grade your AI usage
Using AI is the point — it’s the skill this certificate proves. You’ll answer three short questions about how you used it: what you asked, what was wrong with its first answer, and what you changed. Specific, honest answers score high. “I pasted the brief and submitted the answer” scores near zero.