It is an India shining story that is being repeated in the infotech hub of Pune and city engineers are smiling their way to the bank. With pay packets touching Rs 9 lakh per annum — the highest in the city — it is the global giants Microsoft and IBM vying with local bigwigs Infosys, TCS and Cognizant for the best brains from the campuses.
In the thick of action is the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP), having six of its students — Trupti Asudani, Neha Deodhar, Supriya Naik, Shantanu Kurhekar, Pranav Karkhanis and Ashish Chiplunkar — being picked up by the Redmond-based software behemoth Microsoft for a whopping Rs 9.1 lakh a year salary.
Incidentally, Microsoft is all set to open its development centre in Pune by year-end and has earmarked Rs 1,000-crore investment for its expansion outside Hyderabad, according to Maharashtra IT secretary Arvind Kumar.
‘‘This is the largest recruitment package from Microsoft, which took only one student from our college two years ago at a salary of Rs 6 lakh a year,’’ said a jubilant training and placement officer G V Parishwad. And with other multinationals like Google, Oracle and D E Shaw knocking on their doors — each with an envelope of over Rs 8 lakh a year for a student — Parishwad is now thinking of extending invitations only to the big firms. ‘‘Now that the majority of our students are placed, we are inviting only those companies that will pay more than Rs 8 lakh,’’ he said.
He has a reason to cheer. For, COEP has seen over 95 per cent of its students from electronics, IT, computer, instrumentation and mechanical streams placed and electrical and production engineering touching 70 per cent placement. ‘‘Last year, we only had 70 per cent placement, while this time we have already crossed 80 per cent in two weeks,’’ Parishwad said.
It is not just COEP students who have raked in the moolah, but other top colleges too have reported 60-80 per cent placements. ‘‘In the first 12 days of campus recruitment, 80 per cent of 300 students were placed,’’ PICT principal G P Potdar said. Salary packages have also been better, with the other colleges’ students on an average being offered Rs 5 lakh a year.
As usual, it is the IT sector that is offering more pay and picking up the best brains, too. ‘‘Software companies have the largest requirement and since investment is low and returns are high, they can afford to recruit more than other core industries,’’ Parishwad said.
In addition, with companies expanding in Pune, they prefer to pick students from local colleges. ‘‘We are going to recruit some 5,000 people in the next two years in Pune and it is favoured destination compared to other cities since there are many top colleges and good exposure here,’’ Praneet Singh from HR department of TCS said.
The core sectors are also picking up with Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro and Mahindra & Mahindra as well as several construction companies visiting the campuses. ‘‘Most core companies from the civil, manufacturing and other sectors come in later in the year, since they cannot predict their requirement in advance like software companies,’’ Parishwad said.
‘‘But companies are now diversifying into many sectors, which has given rise to many opportunities in the industry,’’ Potdar added.
With fat pay packets and a bright future ahead, it is celebration time for Pune’s engineering graduates.
(With inputs from Manasi Saraf-Joshi)