All Indian institutes of technology have asked all public sector undertakings (PSUs) to complete their recruitment process for engineering graduates before the admission process for MTech courses begins, an expected move for helping students to take their decision whether they want to pursue with the job or want to focus on studies. Before this, students have to leave their studies midway if they had an opportunity from a PSU.

The request was made at a meeting of IIT directors and human resource development (HRD) ministry officials with representatives of the PSUs in Mumbai earlier this month, sources said on Friday.

An important thing to note is that,

About 25% MTech seats in the IITs usually fall vacant as students leave the programme midway, mainly to join PSUs, IIT officials said.

• Admission to the MTech courses is generally completed by July 15, every year.
• The PSUs have assured the council to take up the matter with the government. The state-run PSUs genrally recruit 1,500 students every year from the IITs, usually by October.

“This is a good step and it will help in addressing the issue of vacancies arising after students quit the course after getting jobs. A number of seats go vacant and we are unable to offer it to other students. If PSUs are able to restrict their recruitment process by mid-July it will be good,” said V Ramgopal Rao, director, IIT Delhi.

Facts related to this initiative:

1. In the last academic session, out of 8,000 students who enrolled for MTech at the IITs, 2,000 left after getting jobs. 1,500 of them got jobs in PSUs such as ONGC, GAIL and SAIL, among others. The remaining 500 opted for private sector companies that usually complete their campus placement in the fourth year of BTech.
2. The country’s 23 IITs have an estimated 72,000 students. Around 14,000 MTech students are enrolled in the institutes annually.

Admissions to the MTech programme take place through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), the score for which is also used by PSUs for recruitment.

“IITs such as Delhi, Bombay and Madras are particularly hit by the midway desertion as their students usually get better score in the GATE,” an official said.

“A lot of time, money and energy are invested in the M Tech programmes. IITs are premier institutes, and there is a long waitlist for getting into them. If students leave midway, the seats go vacant,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

The meeting also discussed that a common admission portal (CAP) could be introduced. The CAP will have several elements including a ‘common time window’ so that students selected for MTech and PSUs could pick their options on the same platform and it would get communicated to both the parties.This will help students to choose between jobs at the PSUs and pursuing further study, leaving the vacant seats to others in the queue.