786 from IIT-M placed as 1st phase of hiring ends

The highest offer was a Rs. 1.3-crore package from an international company

Tech giant Cognizant came up with 27 offers — the maximum by a company — at the placement season of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), this year.

At the end of the first phase of the placement drive that began on December 1 last year, 906 offers were made by 231 companies that visited the campus. A total of 786 students have been placed so far.

The IITs have jointly decided to not reveal the names of the students with the highest offers.

However, the highest offer was a Rs. 1.3-crore per annum package. Eight students received offers worth more than Rs. 77 lakh per annum from international companies, mostly based in the United States.

The highest domestic offer this year was of Rs. 48.68 lakh per annum, and 35 students received offers above Rs. 20 lakh per annum.

Four companies gave more than 15 offers to the students and Cognizant topped the list with 27 offers. Samsung Research India, Bangalore, came up with 18 offers followed by Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies with 17 offers, and Epic with 16.

As many as 145 students of the mechanical department have been placed, topping the other departments at IIT-M. But, percentage wise, the computer science department was ranked first with 90 per cent placement in the first phase.

On the domestic placement front, Goldman Sachs (strategies group) topped the list of bunch offers with 10 offers of more than Rs. 20 lakh per annum. Samsung Research (six), E Bay Inc/Paypal India (four), Schlumberger Asia Services (three) and Intuit India Product Development Centre (three), came up with annual offers of more than Rs. 20 lakh.

Lt. Col. Jayakumar, deputy registrar of students and placements, IIT-M, said the placements would go on till the academic session and beyond.

“The modified strategy of inviting international companies offering international placements on day-one set the mood. As many as 25 international companies began recruitment on the first day in three shifts,” he said.

The second phase of placements is currently on.