Ranchi, Jan. 11: The Satyam Computer crisis, being billed the biggest corporate fraud in the country, is threatening to sink the future of several engineering students in the state.

The software giant had handpicked more than 100 students from elite technical colleges, including BIT, Mesra and Sindri, and Indian School of Mines University (ISMU), Dhanbad, this placement season.

But chairman B. Ramalinga Raju’s startling admission — that he had padded profits and cooked up bank balances at the company for years — followed by his resignation and arrest have left the students scouting for safer options.

According to records, Satyam Computer Services recruited 40 engineering students from BIT, Sindri, and 20 from BIT, Mesra. Six students from ISMU, Dhanbad, also bagged jobs that promised an average initial salary of Rs 3.5 lakh per annum.

The company also shortlisted some more students from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Adityapur, and National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology (NIFFT), Hatia.

“Satyam officials visited the campus in October last year. Ten students took the test for placements at Satyam. Six of them were selected. However, they are yet to receive information on the final recruitment process. Now that the fraud has come to light, we want to offer them better — and safer — options in the next round (of placements),” said the training and placement officer at ISMU, Chiranjeev Kumar.

BIT, Sindri, the biggest beneficiary of Satyam this year, is also juggling available options.

“We never had imagined that the fourth biggest company in the software sector is going to pose such a problem for us. Forty of our students, from different streams of engineering, got placed in Satyam this time. But the company’s stocks have plunged after the Rs 7,136-crore fraud came to the fore. The future of our students is at stake. We cannot take the risk of letting them join the software company at this juncture. We will have to offer them other options,” said Girijesh Kumar, the placement officer of BIT, Sindri.

But both ISMU and BIT, Sindri, officials admit that the global recession has already shrunk the job market and it will be a Herculean task to find better opportunities for the 100-odd students.

However, authorities at BIT, Mesra, are a tad more optimistic. They believe efforts to salvage Satyam would yield results.

“Twenty of our students have been selected by Satyam. The latest developments may have cast a shadow on their future, but the uncertainties, we believe, will soon be over. Though we have not received any communication on recruitment — continuation of the process or otherwise — these students can always opt for jobs elsewhere,” said B.B. Pant, the in-charge of training and placement division at BIT, Mesra.

Students, meanwhile, say they are keeping their fingers crossed.

“First, the economic downturn, and now, this Satyam crisis; we don’t have many choices. So, we are sincerely hoping that the new board turns around the software giant’s fortune,” said a final-year student of BIT, Mesra, who bagged a job with Satyam.