It is raining jobs at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Patna.

The institute has achieved 100 per cent placements for its students for the first time. It has received 421 job offers in the current session (2015-16) against the 379 students eligible to apply for them - a figure that is much higher than previous years.

Forty-three companies visited the institute this year, 13 more than last year. Thirty-three companies had visited last year and 304 of the 372 eligible students had been placed.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), which recruited six students last year, doubled its openings this year. Twelve students bagged packages of Rs 11.5 lakh per annum each.

"We recruited more students from NIT-Patna as we found many eligible students this year," Chaitya Parna Banerjee, a human resource official at BPCL, told The Telegraph from Calcutta.

She said state-run oil companies were expanding rapidly and job opportunities had opened up.

The NIT-Patna administration gave credit to three factors for the improvement in placements this year.

"The improvement is largely because of the students' merit, the teachers' contribution, and no recession in the country," said Samrat Mukherjee, NIT-Patna training and placement in-charge.

NIT-Patna students feel that a good grade from the National Board of Accreditation helped largely in the improvement of placement figures.

The board accredited the institute for the first time last year.

The students also thanked the Digital India initiative for the improvement in placements. "A number of companies that recruited students are start-up companies, most of which are coming up as part of the Digital India campaign," said Manish Kumar Verma, a final-year computer science student who bagged a package of Rs 9 lakh from German multinational SAP Labs. "The grade from the accreditation board probably attracted the new companies here."

Saurav Kumar, a final-year student of mechanical engineering, said: "IT giants are supporting the start-up companies and therefore they have a lot of jobs to offer."