After offer pull-backs, IITs bar 31 firms from campus recruitment

The panel responsible for campus hiring across all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the country has blacklisted 31 companies and banned them from recruiting students for a year after a flurry of complaints against the firms.

The All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) drew up the blacklist on 14 August, but the names were released after IIT-Bombay revealed today the names of nine of these companies that were banned from campus recruitments. Most of these firms are startups.

The companies blacklisted by IIT-Bombay today include Portea Medical and Chinese firm Johnson Electric from placements for one year as a penalty for a variety of violations, mainly involving revoking the offers to some of its graduates.

The action follows a controversy over a host of companies, mainly startups finding the going tough, either revoking the offer letters or delaying joining dates, which have impacted students.

Online pharmacy player Portea, which has reportedly raised $46.5 million in two rounds, has been blacklisted for one year for revoking an offer, the school said in an official statement.

Similarly, the NCR-based Peppertap that was into grocery sales, has also been penalised for revoking offers. Johnson Electric of China has also been penalised for revoking offers.

Others who faced action for revoking offers include GPSK and Cashcare Technologies, the statement said.

For delaying the joining dates of the selected candidates, consulting companies IndusInsight, and the Houston-based American company LexInnova have been barred from placements for a year, IIT-Bombay said.

A company named LeGarde Burnett Group was also blacklisted for both revoking an offer and after it was found "fake" with no proper office address, it said.

Another company Mera Hunar was found to have come up with a different name and hired students for another startup, which attracted the penal action of one year.

It can be noted that since IITs have a centralised placement panel, the All IITs Placement Committee and in all likelihood, the action by IIT-Bombay will automatically bar the startups from approaching any of the IITs in the country for placements next year.

More background checks
The convener of the committee, Prof Kaustubha Mohanty, said the exercise is a precaution taken in the interest of students in all the 23 IITs of the country.

 ''We decided that when we ask a particular company to register with us, we will try to ask for data on their sources of funding, statement of accounts, balance sheet, and number of employees. We used to ask for a lot of details earlier too, but not so stringently,'' he said.

The banned companies will have to go through intense scrutiny before they are allowed to recruit students after the one-year embargo gets over.

Around 25 students from IIT-Bombay were affected by the nine firms that were banned later.

The Mumbai-based premier tech institute said it will be cautious with startups.

''Startups will be allowed after a good background check such as proper funding to support the recruitment, and growth prospects. Our aim is to avoid job offers being revoked or delays in joining date in the next placement season,'' said Dipesh Chauhan, placement manager at IIT-Bombay.

He said, ''Now that there is a government notification following the Startup India campaign on defining startups, we will be following these guidelines.''

The blacklisted 31 are Zettata; NowFloats; ConsultLane; Zimply; PepperTap; Portea Medical; Babajob; GPSK; Hopscotch; SmartTrak Solar Systems Pvt. Ltd.; Crayon Data India Pvt Ltd.; Glow Homes Technologies Pvt Ltd, Tescra Software Pvt Ltd / RockON Technologies; Grofers; Tenova India Pvt Ltd, Verity Knowledge Solutions; ExcellenceTech.; Stayzilla; Roadrunnr; LexInnova; LeGarde Burnett Group; Johnson Electric, Japan; Mera Hunar; Fundamental Education; CashCare Technology, Holamed; IndusInsight; ClickLabs; Grabhouse; Medd.

The committee has also banned Zomato from recruiting for another year.

Of the nine firms on the IIT-Bombay blacklist, GPSK, Johnson Electric, China, Portea Medical, Cashcare Technologies and PepperTap were blacklisted for revoking job offers made to students. The LeGarde Burnett Group was banned for revoking and offer and having a fake office address.

Another company named Mera Hunar was barred from campus recruitments as it came with a different name and hired students for another startup. IndusInsight was blacklisted for delaying the joining dates of candidates.

The past few months recorded several startups delaying job offers made during campus placements. Several top firms – including ecommerce giant Flipkart - pushed back the joining dates of recruits from several top institutes by at least six months.

The IIT-Bombay decision follows months of speculation that a slowdown in the start-up sector was hurting placements in India's top schools. At present, start-ups account for almost a third of campus job offers across IITs and IIMs.