The real estate boom has been reflected in the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) placements.

The laterals — management parlance for placement of students with work experience — at the institute, which started in early January and ended last week, saw a significant rise in the participation of real estate companies.

Big names in the industry, including the DLF, Lodha, Unitech and Raheja groups, offered students around 20 key management positions.

“With many of the real estate companies going public and entering SEZs, there is a lot of demand for trained manpower. Students also showed interest in the sector this year because of the rate at which it is growing,” said Murari Perumalsamy, a placement cell representative at IIMC.

Most of the offers were for roles in strategic management. There were also offers in business development and finance.

Senior management roles were offered in the corporate finance and capital markets divisions of a leading private sector bank.

The other major recruiters were consulting giants Deloitte, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young. Alghanim, a West Asia-based company, offered a number of consulting and general management profiles and the highest lateral salary of Rs 28 lakh per annum.

The lateral placements brought 42 companies to the campus. The number of offers went up to 148 from 90 last year. While 65 offers were accepted last year, 108 offers were taken up this year. Hundred and eighty students participated in the process.

“The number of students who took part in the laterals at IIMC is comparable to the batch strength of other B-schools. This gives recruiters a large and diverse pool of talent to choose from,” said Georgie Mathews, another recruitment coordinator.

The average salary on offer went up from Rs 12 lakh last year to Rs 14.15 lakh this year. The highest domestic salary on offer this year was Rs 21 lakh.

“The students have another shot at their dream job in the final placements, which will start on March 8,” said Srikrishna Swaminathan, the recruitment co-ordinator at IIMC.