Varanasi: Covid fails to hit internships, placements at IIT-BHU

VARANASI: The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have failed to make any impact on placements and paid internships at the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU). Despite the academic session 2019-20 getting severely affected due to several lockdowns, the institute has maintained its growth pattern, both for placements and paid internships, during the pandemic period.
“Even during this hard time, the institute is doing very well in the session 2020-21 both in terms of pre-placement offers and paid internship,” IIT (BHU) director Prof. Pramod Kumar Jain told TOI.
He added, “The number of pre-placement offers increased from 164 in 2019-20 to 253 in 2020-21, and the number of internships also increased from 141 (2019-20) to 204 (2020-21). The placement data for the period up to September 8 speaks for itself, and this trend seems to continue for the remaining period of the academic session.”
Jain said the placement is witnessing a continuous growth, both in terms of number and median salary as well. From a meagre number of 47 companies visiting in 1998, the institute could have more than 200 companies visiting it during the session 2019-20. The institute has been focusing to increase the employability of students by conducting programmes on hard and soft skills both.
“The institute has involved the same resources, but made use of the digital platform, not only to equip its students for better employability but also to face the unprecedented stress due to Covid,” he said.
“Since the students are found to be industry-ready, companies like Microsoft, Nutanix, Morgan Stanley, Texas Instruments, Amazon, Standard Chartered Bank, J P Morgan Chase, Oracle, to name the few, have already offered paid internships and would be visiting for campus selection in December ,” he added.
According to him, in the current Covid pandemic scenario, a lot of challenges were there both for the recruiters and the institute. Conducting an online test remotely in a successful manner was a big challenge. The companies have come up with software solutions with proctoring capabilities to check use of unfair means and impersonation.
Managing the schedule of interviews of the students simultaneously by the multiple companies was easy for the institute when the students were physically present in the campus. Due to Covid, interviews are taking place remotely. With the in-house developed processes and software, the institute could successfully overcome this problem.
Jain said it was the year 2019 when India celebrated the centenary of its degree-level education in engineering beginning from the campus of BHU, established by Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya. Its erstwhile Benaras Engineering College (BENCO) was the only institute for more than a decade to produce engineers for the undivided India.
He said even with the meagre resources at its disposal, the institute had its mark on teaching and research. The alumni from this institute continued to occupy the top positions world-over, be it teaching, research, consultancy, finance or public administration.
Full report on www.toi.in