IIT placements begin today

Investment banking companies are back on the campuses of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), offering plum jobs to engineering graduates. IITs, which will begin placements tomorrow, expect this year to be a better one as compared to last year.

While Tower Research Capital, a financial services company from New York, has confirmed participation at IIT-Kanpur with the highest offer of Rs 44.5 lakh per annum so far, IBM has made an offer of Rs 14 lakh, highest so far at IIT- Roorkee.

The institutes say they see a 30 per cent salary hike over last year, when the average offers saw a 30 per cent drop to around Rs 6 lakh, due to the global recession.

“Placements this year look better than last year. We have invited around 1,200 companies on the campus against 800 last year,” said a placement committee member from IIT-Roorkee, which will place around 1,200 students this year.

At IIT-Kharaghpur, the highest salary offered to the batch of 2009 remained the same as last year, at Rs 22 lakh per annum, while the average salary for students dipped to Rs 6 lakh per annum from Rs 7.44 lakh per annum last year.

IIT-Madras has sent out 800 invitations to companies, of which 100 have confirmed participation. The total number of students at IIT-Madras this year is around 1,000.

Last year, the IITs were able to achieve only around 75-80 per cent placements.