In an unprecedented move, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on Thursday released names of 31 companies they have blacklisted for allegedly going back on plum job placements they offered to students.
IITs have barred these 31 companies from participating in placement process this year.
These companies, a lot of them start-ups, have been blacklisted for a year for various reasons, IIT-B spokesperson Falguni Banerjee-Naha said.
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Among the erring companies are grocery delivery service app Grofers, restaurant search and delivery firm Zomato and healthcare startup Portea Medical.
LeGarde Burnett Group, which revoked its job offers and was later found to be a fake, without a proper company address, has been blacklisted completely.
Companies LexInnova and IndusInsight delayed the joining dates given to the selected students, Banerjee-Naha said.
The others said to have revoked job offers were GPSK, Johnson Electric of China, Peppertap and Cashcare Technologies. One firm, Mera Hunar, came up with a different name and hired the IIT-B students for another start-up.
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Hyperlocal delivery start-up Peppertap shut its operations in April as the firm and rivals struggled with a funding slowdown. The company continues to run its reverse logistics business.
Interestingly, despite its role in the row, Flipkart’s name did not feature in the list.
IIT-B Placements Cell official Dipesh Chauhan said while seven companies were Indian, two — Johnson Electric and LeGarde Burnett Group — were from China and Australia respectively.
“Every year, many companies approach us for recruitment. Based on some background check, we invite them for placements. The placement cell didn’t contact them,” Chauhan said.
Most of them are genuine firms, which visit the IIT-B campus for the final round of interviews. Officials of the two foreign companies came from Sydney and Hong Kong.
Most of them are now saying they are revoking or deferring the joining dates of the students “due to some internal restructuring”, Chauhan added.
Most of these companies had revoked their offer letters or delayed the joining dates, affecting about 135 students across various IIT campuses. IIT Bombay, Kharagpur and Roorkee were the worst affected.
It is the first time that a prestigious institution like the IIT has published a list of blacklisted companies for reneging on job offers to its students.
The matter had been under review for a couple of months after these companies defaulted on their job offers, and was discussed at a recent national-level conclave of all IITs in the country.
(With inputs from IANS)
