IIT Placements 2024: No ‘highest package’ data this year to reduce students’ stress, decides panel

NEW DELHI: Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) will likely not disclose the top salaries – “highest packages,” as they are described – that students land in the forthcoming placement season. IIT placements 2024-2025 begin on December 1 at the more established campuses.

A student from the placement team at IIT Bombay told Careers360 that the decision to not make salary details public was taken because the coverage of crore-plus offers were setting expectations very high and adding to the pressure.

An official from IIT Patna confirmed the decision but asked not to be named.

“The packages from each organisation are different in each institute and there are dissimilarities – some IITs only inform CTC, some others only first-year packages. Also, due to these high packages, prospective students and students studying within IITs develop a psychological pressure – especially when this information is circulated in news – if they receive a lesser salary package. To reduce this stress, the All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) has decided not to disclose the highest package. Only specific placement statistics will be informed to the public overall.”

An official from IIT Roorkee also confirmed the decision without commenting further.

Last year saw placement rates fall across engineering colleges, including the IITs and others such as the National Institutes of Technology (NIT). The first phase in December saw low turnout of companies. By the end of the academic year, in April and May, even students of the most popular branch, BTech Computer Science Engineering, were struggling to get placed across top engineering institutions. In mechanical engineering, around 40% BTech graduates were yet to find jobs until May 2024.

Institutions like IIT Delhi took extra measures to place students.

Also read In a first, IIT Madras has admitted 5 students through sports quota

IIT Placements 2024-25: ‘Only median salary and average salary’

A student from IIT Delhi’s placement team said that the decision to not reveal the highest packages had been discussed for the past two-three years.

“It's not an immediate decision, as the conversation has been happening for the last two-three years. This consensus has come due to the mental stress among students. At IITs, our aim is to not say that having a Rs 30 lakh per annum package is bad or a Rs 70 lakh package is good. Just that students shouldn’t be focussed on [the belief] that everyone at IITs get Rs 70 lakh packages for sure,” he stated.

The IIT Delhi student said that the institute believes in only highlighting average and median salaries. “We are against posting the highest packages and this year will only be posting median and average salaries,” he said.

IIT Job Drives: ‘Focus on mental wellness’

The official from IIT Patna explained: “Across all IITs, a lot of focus is put on mental wellness. At the early stage of a career, you should focus on learning and not on package and brand name and counselling is given to students in this reference. Majority of IITs understand this properly but the societal pressure is quite detrimental and much above the student’ general pressure [when,] in newspapers, people read that students have secured more than 1 crore packages. We want to reduce this pressure. Internally we are encouraging students to understand the current market scenario. We always ask students to follow their inner interest above the package and salary.”

He added that the issue has been discussed in the last three AIPC meetings. IITs have also been witnessing a high number of suicides mainly due to academic pressure. There were deaths also in IIT Kanpur and IIT Guwahati.

If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. Those in distress or having suicidal thoughts or tendencies could seek help and counselling by calling 9820466726 or visiting AASRA’s official website or can call iCALL on 9152987821. Here are some more helpline numbers of suicide prevention organisations that can offer emotional support to individuals and families.