Even as it hogged media limelight recently after one of its students was offered a dream job offer by IT marquee firm Facebook, Allahabad-based Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) still remains grounded in reality.
MNNIT maintains that a lot of work needs to be done in improving the infrastructure before it could aspire to figure in the league of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
“IITs are not made overnight. A hefty job offer to one student does not change the ground realities of any institute,” MNNIT director P Chakraborty told Business Standard.
“However, the student has proved our capacity in technical education and knowledge,” he added.
“We are working towards improving the basic infrastructure here and building our capacity in education and training,” he informed. The institute is facing a severe faculty crunch, including in IT and electronics departments.
The Kanpur-based student, whose identity has not been disclosed on his request due to security reasons, was made a job offer by Facebook with annual remuneration of about Rs 1.34 crore, which is arguably the highest so far for the institute.
The student is likely to join Facebook after clearing his term end examination in June this year.
Well recognised in Uttar Pradesh, MNNIT, which is 50 years old and is one of the 30 odd National Institutes of Technology (NIT) all over India. It figures among the top five NITs in India.
Chakraborty claimed that funds were not the only constraints before NITs, but the major factor was changing attitude.
“There are many NITs, who are in fact not able to utilise their full annual budget. Many of these NITs were earlier state engineering colleges, so their attitudes need to change. They have to set higher goals and dream big if they want to compete with the IITs,” he observed.
Some of the top IT firms have been regular at recruitment in the MNNIT campus, including Microsoft and Adobe, while the average salary offers here are around Rs 10 lakh.
About 850 final year students across different disciplines had participated in the placement season. The total seats have now increased to around 1,200 with the additional OBC quota seats.
