Chennai: With just two weeks to go for placement interviews, the number of startup companies registered for recruitment with IIT Madras has come down by more than 50% — from 129 to 60 - this year as compared to last year.
The All IIT Placement Committee (AIPC) had blacklisted 31 startups who had withdrawn their offers to the selected IIT students last year. It also banned them from participating in the recruitment process.
“We have about 60 start-ups registered so far and I am sure more will come later. Maybe there is reluctance on the part of startups because of the AIPC's ban last year,” said Professor Manu Santhanam, advisor, Training and Placement, IIT Madras. “Students also are not very enthusiastic about joining the startups as compared to previous years,” he said.
E-commerce major Flipkart is yet to register for the recruitment. Flipkart had delayed the joining dates of the selected students last year. It later absorbed the recruits as paid interns.
Interestingly, the number of companies registered to recruit the students has increased from 259 to 270 this year. “More companies are from core engineering and research development sector. Of 270 companies registered around 40-45% is from core and research sector. IT companies also there but not as much as the core companies,” he added. He also pointed out not all of them may come to campus recruitment and some of them can withdraw.
Now, IIT Madras students are more interested in joining in the public sector undertakings (PSUs). “IIT students are very much interested in joining in PSUs. We are trying our best to bring in more PSUs for the recruitment,” Professor Manu Santhanam said.
“So far, 4 PSUs have expressed interest. Indian Navy, Isro, ONGC have already come and recruited. We expect Coal India to come later,” he said.
Microsoft and General Electric will likely to be scheduled for day one of the recruitment. IIT- M is yet to finalise the complete list, which may be done in the third week of November.
This year 67 students have received the pre-placement offers. Like last year, about 1,350 students registered for placement. Placement interviews will start from December 1. “As in the past, the analytics, banking, and computing sectors may offer the best packages to our students,” he predicted.
