Deferred placement programme loses sheen on IIT-B campus this year

MUMBAI: The option of deferring placements for one or two years has not found much favour on the IIT-Bombay campus this year. The number of students opting out of placements to work on their start-up ideas has fallen to eight from last year’s 12. But the good news is that those who had applied for the deferred placement programme (DPP) in the last two years have not returned for campus interviews after their ideas took off. To encourage students to start their own entrepreneurial ventures, IIT-B, along with a few of the older IITs, started offering DPP in 2013. The programme allows students to return to campus for interviews in the next two years if their business idea doesn’t work out. At IIT-Madras, the programme was even open to students who wanted to pursue higher studies for a year or two from abroad. After a poor response in the first year, the idea picked up in 2014 at the Powai campus.
Atul Shukla, placement manager at IIT-B, said eight students have applied for deferred placements this year. The students who have opted for the programme this year include undergraduate as well as post-graduate students from across departments.
Vaibhav Antil, a dual degree holder in mechanical engineering who had opted for DPP last year, said his team has managed to establish themselves in the market with their revenue-generating product—an app which allows customers to request songs in pubs and bars through their smartphones. “I started this venture immediately after college, though some of the co-founders were holding other jobs which they quit later,” said Antil. Though they have investors, they also have fixed revenue coming in from subscriptions.
A student from the Powai campus pointed out that the numbers are not significant enough to analyze the declining interest in the deferred placement programme, but another student felt the numbers are decent enough to be taken in to account. “But there are also students who sit for placements despite working on their own start-ups when they are not sure about the viability of their idea,” the student added. Also, many students start early on campus and manage to establish themselves by the time they graduate and hence, need not opt for deferred placements.