Coming to the rescue of hundreds of IIT and IIM students whose job offers got cancelled due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Centre on Wednesday announced the conduct of a special placement drive for them.
Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Wednesday appealed to recruiters to not withdraw any job offer made to students during campus placements due to the economic slowdown created by coronavirus pandemic.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will hold special placement drives for those students whose job offers got cancelled amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Pokhriyal said.
Both the chains of IITs and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) placements were revoked due to uncertainty among companies in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The HRD Minister had last week directed directors of 23 IITs to ensure that campus placements are not affected due to the situation.
The All IITs’ Placement Committee (AIPC) had also reached out to all the companies that visited for campus recruitment, requesting them to not rescind placement offers made for the academic year 2019-20.
IIT Delhi Director V. Ramgopal Rao had also issued a public appeal last week to all recruiters. Rao argued that since all IITs strictly follow the equal opportunity principle [one candidate, one job], withdrawing an offer would mean students “will end up not having any job right now”.
“We all understand these are difficult times. But please be considerate to keep your promises. A few months of delay may be fine. Please do not complicate the lives of these brightest children in an already complex environment. If at all, they are capable of getting you out of recession faster than you can imagine,” he wrote in his appeal shared on social media.
HRD Ministry officials said that IIMs passouts too will benefitted by the same appeal and if need be the government will request and appeal the recruiters and companies to give another chance to the recruitment process once the lockdown is lifted.