Tucked away in the outskirts of west Delhi is the 145-acre campus of the little known Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT). Although the average Delhiite doesn’t know much about its existence, NSIT has been able to make a mark where it matters the most. From Infosys to Microsoft, the biggies in the information technology (IT) sector flock here every year during placements. What’s more, its reputation was endorsed when it was ranked as one of the top 10 tech schools in India in a Dataquest-IDC survey (DQ-IDC) of best technology schools in 2005. It also ranked among the top five institutes for placements in the same survey in 2007.

It is interesting to note that in recent years, several institutes like NSIT have been steadily emerging as centres of excellence for IT education. Agreed that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are the top technology schools in India. But it is not wrong to say that besides the IITs, the National Institute of Technologies (NITs) and a few other top tech schools, there is today a growing breed of “not so obvious” institutes that are gaining ground with their academic rigour and practical training.

Campus recruitments are strong indicators of an institute’s rising popularity as they show the confidence the industry has in the graduates from a particular institute. And if reports and surveys are indicators, then IT companies today are looking beyond the obvious.

“Indeed, IT companies are looking beyond the IITs. According to the DQ-IDC 2007 survey, a number of tech schools figured high on the list of placements of the IT industry,” points out Prasanto K. Roy, chief editor, CyberMedia Publications that publishes IT magazine Dataquest.

According to the DQ-IDC 2007 survey, some of the institutes that had high IT industry placements are Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT), Gandhinagar; P.E.S. Institute of Technology, Bangalore; S.S.N. College of Engineering, Chennai; Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology, Bangalore; NSIT, Delhi; Manipal Institute of Technology, Udupi and Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad.

While some of these institutes have established their reputation over the years, some others have attained a good industry standing in a very short span of time. Take, for instance, DAIICT. The institute, a non-affiliated university that was established in 2001, has had a consistent 100 per cent campus placement record since its first BTech batch graduated in 2005. DAIICT is a hot destination for companies like MindTree, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics, Reliance Communications, Sun Microsystems and InterraIT.

In fact, IT companies say that they don’t just go to the IITs to scout for the best talent today. At HCL Infosystems, for instance, 80 per cent of the recruitment is done directly from campuses across India, including the B and C cities. “We provide opportunities to young and talented engineers across the country. We do not restrict our recruitment to IITs; rather we seek the best talent among the engineering institutes from tier two and tier three cities as well as rural areas,” says Vivek Punekar, vice-president, human resources, HCL Infosystems.

Some companies such as the Noida-based Birlasoft (India) Ltd have made it a policy not to visit IIT campuses. For campus recruitments, Birlasoft visits Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur; Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh; the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow; Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra; NIT Calicut and NIT Surathkal. Roy, on the other hand, has a different take on the reason why companies are flocking to these institutes.

“As the Indian IT industry is heavily dependent on export revenues and much of these revenues have come under severe stress due to the strengthening of the rupee, most of the companies are looking at cutting down costs. Since students from premier institutes usually come at a high cost, IT companies are moving to the hinterland. In our list of top 10 institutes that had high IT industry placements, only four were from the metros. The rest were all from smaller cities,” says Roy.

The institutes, on their part, have been moulding their course structure and teaching methodology after consulting IT companies to give their students practical and industry-relevant training. “With time, we have improved our infrastructure by including industrial grid equipment. We also increased the stress on practical training,” says Ranjit Singh, director, NSIT.

At the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), the computer science department has five different laboratories such as a digital systems lab, a research lab, a software computer systems lab, a network technology lab and a software design and consultancy lab. “All these labs have been provided with an LCD projector to enhance the quality of training. Each lab has been designed to accommodate 30 students per session and has been equipped with state-of-the-art computer systems,” says Muniswaran, joint director, MIT.

So, all’s not lost if you don’t make it to one of the well-known IT institutes.