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IIT salaries increase by 10-20 per cent this year

Placement cells at the IITs have recorded an increase of 10 to 20 per cent in average salary levels of graduates against last year.

For the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), this placement season may be much beyond their expectations.

The IITs say, given the economic scenario, they expected placements to be a muted affair, but the response from companies has been quite good.

There is more. Placement cells have recorded an increase of 10 to 20 per cent in average salary levels.

The highest salary offered has seen an increase of around 20 to 90 per cent as compared to last year. Final placements on IIT campuses begin on December 1.

"Given the slowdown, we wondered if the placements would be as decent as last year but a good number of companies have confirmed participation allaying our fears," said a placement official from IIT Bombay.

A US-based software major has offered the highest salary (so far) of Rs 1.30 crore per annum, to an IIT Bombay student. However, an institute official said this cannot be confirmed till placements begin as the final offer has not been made yet.

Last year Samsung (Korea) offered the highest salary at Rs 80 lakh per annum.

The IIT Bombay will see 1,600 students sitting for placements this year and expects around 250 to 270 companies to participate.

"Some US companies have doubled the salaries this year against what was offered last year," the placement official added.

IIT Bombay said this year there is a lot of interest from software companies.

Microsoft, Oracle, LinkedIn, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Shell and Samsung are a few companies which have confirmed participation so far.

Even IIT Kanpur and Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) are expecting salaries to be better than last year.

The institutes said IT giants like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo will be visiting the campus during placements next month.

"There is misleading speculation that none of the US companies are coming to IITs for placements. This is not true. Some of these giants have taken care of their requirements through pre-placement offers (PPOs) which is why they are not coming. However, major IT, consulting, finance and core engineering companies like ITC, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have confirmed their participation in the placements at IIT-KGP this year," said Sudhir Barai, head of training and placement at IIT-KGP.

For IIT KGP, feedback from recruiters has been "very good".

"The number of companies participating at KGP has increased from 180 last year to 220 this year. The feedback from recruiters have been very good and salaries will be higher than last year," said Barai. The batch size at IIT KGP this year is over 2000 students.

Seconding Barai is Vimal Kumar, chairman of training and placement at IIT Kanpur who said that global firms like Google, Microsoft and Amazon will be visiting its campus.

"Some companies have dropped out after confirming but it is not alarming. This happens every year. However, salaries will be higher or at least like last year," said Kumar. IIT Kanpur will roughly see 200 firms participating in the placements process for a batch size of over 1000 students. Other firms likely to participate at IIT Kanpur placements include Oracle, Mitsubishi, Diamond Consulting, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, among others.

IIT Madras could not be reached for comments.