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6 startups blacklisted from IIT campus placement participation
After the emergency meeting between 16 Indian Institutes of Technology placement committee heads took place on Friday with the agenda to find a remedy for startups and e-commerce companies postponing or withdrawing offers of the hiring of their campus recruits, the committee has decided to blacklist 6 startups from participating in campus placement for the academic year 2016-17.
As an outcome of the meeting, placement heads of 16 IITs decided to blacklist 6 startups from participating in campus placement for the academic year 2016-17. The meeting took place in Mumbai and those unable to make it, logged in via Skype.
The list includes companies like e-tailer Zimply, healthcare startup Portea and grocery portal PepperTap. These startups had withdrawn their offer leaving the students in a fix. Cost pressure and operation closing have been the main reasons for their action.
The startups blacklisted have been categorised into three types- one that delayed joining dates, one that reduced the promised salaries, and the one that withdrew their job offers altogether.
The third category, which withdrew their job offers altogether, has 5 to 6 companies and are banned from hiring this year. “IITs want to protect the students. We are sure that this will act as a deterrent for other companies,” said Babu Viswanathan, training and placement advisor, IIT-Madras.
The blacklisted companies, however, can again participate in next year’s campus recruitments after giving a satisfactory explanation in AIPC’s meeting.
There have been at least 5 companies which have slashed their initial packages by as much as 25%. A week’s time has been given to these companies to respond and move forward with their initial offer. Those who will fail to do so will be blacklisted.
The main focus was on Flipkart of course, India’s largest online marketplace, who didn’t change its stance on reducing the delay or increasing the compensation for its fault, even after several requests from IITs and IIMs.
There were even talks of action being taken against Flipkart for delaying the joining dates of all new campus recruits by six months and offering to pay Rs 1.5 lakh as joining bonus.
Flipkart and Roadrunnr have delayed their joining date for campus hires, While Flipkart has given assurance to provide internship with a stipend of INR 50,000 per month, Roadrunnr has agreed to provide joining by September.
“We wanted written assurance from these companies. If these companies failed to honour their commitments, they will also be blacklisted,” Vishwanathan said.
IITs have also asked students to go ahead and consider job offers and interviews with other companies that have approached them including commerce firms Amazon, Paytm and Voonik.
