No Place in Placements

As one of the oldest technical institutions in Asia, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee is one of the foremost institutes of higher technological education in engineering, basic and applied research.

The institute has been in the news last year thanks to the innovative path-breaking software development by its students in a joint collaboration with PGI Chandigarh making it the first IIT-PGI project. The new software intends to provide relief to the patients spending a considerable amount on hospital bills and medical tests, MRI, CT scan and X Ray and ultrasound testsand once installed on these diagnostic machines will pick up any abnormality in ultrasound, MRI, or CT scan. An analytical data has been saved in the software according to the texture and various signals from these image tests.

In a bid to reach out to prospective students unable to come to the campus, IIT Roorkee is planning to expand, with work already under way to develop an extension center at the knowledge hub of NCR at Greater Noida. Students however would be admitted from the next academic session and this 10 acre new extension center is expected to help students belonging to capital and NCR regions.

Coming back to the overall student performance, its been a fantastic year. Thanks to 96% of its total faculty strength being PhD degree holders, out of the total intake of 1,013 students in the BTech course last year, 93% passed out with first division.

The institute has done well in the academic domain, it was ranked at #3 in the academic environment and at #5 in academic infrastructure. Results too were fantastic but the same cannot be said about placements last year. Even as its better known cousins like IIT Mumbai and IIT Kharagpur did significantly well, ranking at #1 and #2 respectively, IIT Roorkee was placed at #16, only marginally ahead of Birla Institute of Technology and Thapar University.

Even as placements picked up in most engineering institutes, the placements at IIT Roorkee drew a dismal picture. Out of the 150 companies which visited the campus, only 454 students were placed out of which 137 were placed with IT/ITeS companies, of the total of 1,013 students in its undergraduate course. The placement cell at the institute has an ardous task cut out for the coming year.

IIT Roorkee was also in the news recently when its director Professor SC Saxena was appointed as the chairman of the technical committee constituted to shortist candidates for the Prime Ministerss Shram awards for 2009 and 2010. The awards are presented to workmen employed in departmental undertakings of central or state governments or in private sector recognising their specific contribution in the field of productivity and proven innovative abilities. yz