IIT Kharagpur bags highest number of recruitments

At least 1,000 students who cleared their B-Tech and M-Tech at IIT-K have landed plum jobs in 2005. ‘‘Last year, IIT had placed 93.6 per cent of its students and the year before it was 80.5 per cent. Also, one big reason why IIT-K does better than its counterparts is that a student, once picked up by a company, has to join. Other IITs offer options,’’ said Gautam Sinha, Professor in Charge, Placement, IIT-K.

The season also saw the return of the manufacturing sector as recruiters in a big way for the first time in the last three years. The campus was flooded by over 150 companies — automobile majors, petroleum heavyweights and speciality companies — who picked up students from the across 26 departments of the institute.

‘‘Usually our main recruiters are from IT and ITEs campus. But this time, we saw almost all the important domestic automobile players oil PSUs and service sector companies. This is a very encouraging trend,’’ Sinha added.

Among the automobile majors who came in droves to the IIT-K campus this year were Tata Motors, Maruti, Bajaj, Eicher and Ashok Leyland. ‘‘Next year, IIT-K will try to rope in Daimler Chrysler and Hyundai for the placement season,’’ Sinha said.

Petroleum majors ONGC, Reliance, Bharat Coking Coal Ltd were the downstream companies which pitched in IIT-K this year. The institute is also hoping to rope in Shell next year.

Surprise entrants this year were Sclumberger, Caterpillar, Coromondol Fertiliser, Indian Hotels, Citifinancials and UTI.

IIT-K has also tied up with Danieli, the world’s largest steel plant equipment manufacturer, who will recruit for all its departments from the institute next year, whereas tobacco major ITC is involved with multi-tier collaboration with the institute.

And as for the paypacket, the highest on offer was Rs 8.1 lakh for a B-Tech student — higher than last year’s highest of Rs 7.5 lakh.