The Singur siege has cast a cloud on the career prospects of several engineers graduating from the city.

Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu) sources said around 50 students would take the first hit, losing out on what had seemed to be a given — a job with Tata Motors in Singur.

The company had contacted the university’s placement cell at the beginning of this year about recruiting “a number of fresh graduates from the mechanical, civil and electrical departments” for the Singur plant.

“The Tata Motors authorities were supposed to get back to us last month to confirm the recruitment process. But we have not heard from them yet, and our campus recruitment begins within a week or two. We are very worried,” said Manas Sanyal, the placement officer at Besu.

At Jadavpur University (JU), recruitment for this year was done a few weeks back but the future looks bleak. Siddhartha Bhattacharya, the placement officer, said: “Tata Motors had picked up 14 engineering graduates. But the situation in Singur is a matter of serious concern for us because any engineering institution depends on the growth of new industries in the state where it is situated.”

The Singur setback comes at a time when the local recruitment graph was rising steadily at JU. At the 2007 placements, Tata Motors had recruited 20 students — a significant jump from previous years — of whom at least five were posted at the Singur plant, a teacher said.

“Localised recruitment needs to increase and for that new industries must come to Bengal. But given what is happening in Singur, industrialisation will suffer a setback and so will the career prospects of our students,” said a member of the engineering faculty.

Around 1,000 students clear the undergraduate and postgraduate engineering courses at JU every year. Close to 40 per cent get jobs within Bengal. Placement records at Besu reveal that barely 20 per cent of the 750 engineering graduates get jobs in Bengal.

“We were expecting localised recruitment to go up following the Nano project. Now, we are keeping our fingers crossed,” said Sanyal of Besu.

That’s what private engineering colleges are also doing, with an eye on Mamata Banerjee’s podium of protest.

“The survival of engineering colleges depends largely on the local industrial scenario. Many more new industries are required in the state to accommodate the number of students pursuing a career in engineering,” said Satyajit Chakraborty, the director of Institute of Engineering and Management, a private engineering college in Salt Lake.