NIT-Allahabad student bags Rs 1.34-cr Facebook offer

You may not have heard of the Allahabad-based Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT). But Mark Zuckerberg's social networking giant, Facebook, has.

Facebook has 'liked' an MNNIT student and made him a job offer with an annual pay package of Rs 1.34 crore ($262,500), the biggest offer ever made at the institute, so far. The earlier high when Facebook hired at a crore-plus salary was in 2010 when it picked up an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras student at an annual package of Rs 1.7 crore.

P Chakrabarti, director, MNNIT, said generally average salary offers at the institute are Rs 12 lakh with exceptions of Rs 19-20 lakh annual packages at times.

"This is the highest in the recent past. We have approached Facebook in the past also, but this time the student could clear the nine rounds of interviews over the phone," said Chakrabarti.

Facebook has been recruiting students from technology institutions in India, especially IITs. This is the first time it has recruited someone from NIT. Chakrabarti refused to divulge details of the student citing privacy reasons. The student, said the director, would join Facebook in June after his final examination.

Many core companies, in addition to software companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Adobe among others, have visited the campus to recruit students this year. The institute has 850 students across 11 branches and 820 have been placed. The 45-year-old institute is funded by the Union ministry of human resource and development. Inspired by this success, director of the institute is planning to rope in the British Council to provide professional and social skills to the students.

"Our students have sound technical knowledge. But being a government institution, we get students from all strata of society; some from very poor families. Thus, general feedback from companies is that students are technically very sound, but have poor professional skills. We need to address that issue," said Chakrabarti.

He took over as director 10 months ago and is planning to develop the institute and its infrastructure. There are a little over 30 NITs in the country. An average NIT funding is Rs 50 crore. On an average, they also receives Rs 20-25 crore under the World Bank-funded Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme.