Patna, Jan. 3: Space is a problem for National Institute of Technology (NIT) students. Placement is not.

The budding techies have to attend classes in shifts because of space crunch on their 30-acre campus along Ashok Rajpath. But they are miles ahead on job front, especially in core sector companies, in comparison to their counterparts in Birla Institute of Technology (BIT).

With the campus recruitment in engineering colleges reaching its zenith, it was evident that core companies still preferred to visit NIT, Patna, than BIT, Patna. Two public sector oil companies — Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) — have offered jobs to 19 NIT students.

IOCL has offered an annual package of Rs 10 lakh each to 10 mechanical engineering students. BPCL has hired nine students from core branches like mechanical, electrical and electronics departments offering Rs 10 lakh per annum to each. Maruti Suzuki has offered 13 mechanical branch students a package of Rs 5.76 lakh per annum, while Hero Motor Corp offered Rs 5.86 lakh per annum to three students.

Vivek Kumar, a final year mechanical branch student at NIT, Patna, said: “Core sector companies always preferred NIT students for hiring.”

NIT’s placement officer Sanjeev Sinha offered its reason. “Core sector companies prefer NIT, Patna, students because the mechanical, electrical and civil engineering departments of our institute are very old,” Sinha said.

Besides the core companies, IT firms hired students from NIT. Accenture and Wipro recruited 40 and 30 students, respectively. BIT students took the cake in getting job offers from the IT firms, though. Wipro hired 75 of them offering Rs 3.25 lakh per annum each. Infosys offered jobs to 55 students with Rs 3.25 lakh annual package.

Most core sector companies, however, bypassed BIT, Patna. A senior official of the institute said: “Our students are in no way inferior to BIT, Mesra, students. But core companies prefer to recruit students from BIT’s main centre at Mesra than its extension centres in Patna, Jaipur and Deoghar.”

The core sector companies that have recruited BIT students this year include Reckitt Benckiser, a leading firm in household, health and personal care products, and Tata Motors. While Reckitt Benckiser has recruited a student offering Rs 6 lakh per annum, Tata Motors recruited six offering an annual package of Rs 5.7 lakh to each.