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IT biggies keep away from IIT campuses

Anusha Subramanian

Believe it or not, but Infosys Technologies is the only one of the top five listed information technology companies to make it to the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai campus in the academic year 2001-02.

IT biggies like HCL Technologies, Wipro, Satyam Computers and Hughes Software Services have steered clear of the ongoing placements jamboree.

To be sure, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Infotech, Patni Computers and few other small IT companies did show up on the campus. So did international IT majors like Intel, Cisco, Nortel and Lucent, all of which have R&D centres in India. But most of them are offering far fewer jobs than last year.

Welcome to sobering reality. Those who believed that the developments in the US would not affect India's IT majors should perhaps reserve judgement.

The current downtrend and the business pressures faced by the Indian IT industry after the September 11 attacks in the US are taking their toll.

True, IIT, Mumbai, is but one among several of India's IITs. So what happens here may not be a harbinger of events elsewhere. But listen to KN Gupta, the professor who heads placements at IIT, Mumbai.

"IT companies source personnel from IITs across the country. But big IT companies like Infosys, TCS, Intel and IBM have been big recruiters at IIT, Mumbai," he said.

Nandkishore Rathi, assistant placement officer at IIT, Mumbai, said: "Only a few IT companies have come to the campus so far." What is more, the number of companies at this year's placement has also come down sharply from 122 to 55. Not surprisingly, the drop is sharpest among IT firms - down from 80 last year to 30 this year.

On an average, jobs offered by IT companies usually account for almost 80 per cent of the jobs offered on the campus. This year IIT functionaries expect that number to dip to around 45 per cent.

So, as Rathi pointed out, even Infosys, which recruited 120 students last year, has made offers to half the number of IITians this year.

Tata Infotech last year recruited 80 students, but this year has selected only 11 students. The exception to the rule: TCS. Last year, it recruited around 55 students from IIT, Mumbai; this year the number of offers made remains unchanged.

A senior official at TCS said: "We went to IIT, Mumbai's management school six days ago and made some offers. However, we have not zeroed in on how many we will be recruiting."

This year, 950 students will pass out of IIT, Mumbai. Of these, 869 have registered for jobs with the campus placement office. Out of this 275 have got jobs but only around 55 students have been placed with IT companies.

Still, Satyam Computers has never been a regular at IIT, Mumbai, as the company's official spokesperson pointed out. Infosys executives were unavailable for comment because the company is observing a silent period before announcing its results this Thursday.

Wipro's spokesperson said the company's senior managers were all travelling and therefore were unavailable for comment. Senior officials at Hughes Software Services too were not available for comment.

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