New Delhi: The government has agreed to a long-standing plea by IITs and other tech schools that public sector undertakings be dissuaded from recruiting MTech students.

After the IITs raised concern over a substantial number of MTech seats falling vacant because of recruitments by PSUs after the courses begin, the human resource development ministry took up the matter with the department of public enterprises (DPE) under the heavy industries ministry.

The department last month wrote to all the ministries having PSUs to ask these organisations to time their recruitments in such a way that the process takes place before the admissions to MTech courses in IITs and NITs.

The PSUs recruit candidates based on the merit list of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) conducted by the IITs and the Indian Institute of Sciences. Nearly 10 lakh students take the GATE exam every year.

The GATE results are declared in March every year. However, the PSUs recruit candidates around September or October, when the students are already admitted to the M.Tech courses.

Nearly 30 to 50 per cent students in the key branches of engineering in the IITs and the NITs quit the courses for the jobs. At that point, the institutes have hardly any scope to fill up these seats.

"This happens every year. Within the first six months of admission, several students leave the course. The seats remain vacant," said Prof. Rajdip Bandhyopadhyaya, a faculty member in the chemical engineering department at IIT Bombay.

If the letter is followed, the PSUs will complete their recruitments before the admissions at the IITs and other tech schools, thereby ensuring that no student enrolled in MTech courses leaves.

An IIT Delhi faculty member said PSUs such as Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and Gas Authority of India Ltd mainly recruit students from such institutions.

The IITs and the NITs face another problem as well. Each GATE-qualified student gets a scholarship of about Rs 12,000 a month while studying MTech. The money paid to the students before they quit and join the PSUs cannot be recovered.

"It is difficult to recover the money from the students. The subsequent release of stipend is blocked once the student stops attending classes," the IIT Delhi teacher said.

The teacher expressed hope that the advancement of recruitments by PSUs would help the tech schools check the attrition.