With no placements coming their way, hundreds of students of the first batch of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology at Amethi are up in arms against the management. They have sought Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's intervention in getting jobs, saying if this does not happen, the ambition of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to produce technical hands from Amethi and help them in getting jobs would remain a dream.
Surprisingly, Rahul Gandhi has so far not found time to listen to the problems of these students. He has only conveyed his assurances to them. These first batch students, who would get their degrees this year, are full of anxiety, and not without reason. Though only two months remain for the conclusion of their undergraduate programme, not a single company has come to offer placements to the chemical branch students while for the petroleum branch, only a single company has come for campus placements. Majority of students are yet to get a job offer.
The students say that PSUs (public sector undertakings) make recruitments of professionals only on the basis of GATE score but petroleum engineering is not among the 22 disciplines in which the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is conducted. Thus, despite the professional degree, these students are ineligible for applying for recruitment in PSUs. The students also allege that because of lack of infrastructure in the institute, they are at a disadvantage as many private internship and placement companies lay primary stress on infrastructure. The students also blamed the slipshod working of the institute's management for the delay in their getting job offers.
"The placement brochures submitted by February 2013 were officially prepared by October 2013, and sent by November, 2013. However, most of the private firms complete their recruitment process by this time. The lack of interest of the institute can be gauged by the fact that even after Shell India's confirmation to hold campus recruitment, they were not informed about the profile being offered," they said.
The students also criticised the institute's placement committee for not taking its work seriously. "It calls only small-scale companies which are expected to turn down the offer, being unaware of the institute," the students said while hitting out at the committee for giving false assurances to them. They also decried the lack of facilities in hostels. The RGIPT students threatened to launch an agitation if their concerns were not addressed soon.
