Jamshedpur, Dec. 20: If the campus recruitment trend at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) is anything to go by, the economic downturn is a thing of the past.

It’s placement boom time for the 2010 batch of Adityapur-based NIT with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) alone picking up 49 students, the highest by any company so far.

The software giant took part in the recruitment drive earlier this week and offered an annual package of Rs 3.15 lakh, excluding perks and other emoluments, to those it hired.

The company recruited 17 students each from Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) and Computer Science streams, 11 students from electronic engineering and four from the electrical wing.

Director of NIT, Rajnish Srivastava, expressed satisfaction over the ongoing recruitment process.

“The recruitment trend indicates that it has beaten the recession blues. The placement cell should get credit for that,” he said.

Soon after his appointment last year, Srivastava streamlined the placement cell by involving one extra faculty member to make it more effective.

Officials of the placement cell revealed that from the batch comprising 400 students (including B.Tech, M.Tech and MCA), 180 students had already bagged jobs in various companies. Other than TCS, the big names recruiting from the campus included IBM, Infosys, Accenture and Wipro.

The core sector companies that are yet to visit the campus include Adani Power, Arcelor Mittal, Hindalco, Samsung and Punj Lloyd. National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which picked up eight students, has offered the highest package so far — Rs 8 lakh per annum. The lowest package has been offered by Ispat, about Rs 3 lakh. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) also offered a good package of Rs 7.8 lakh.

“The placements have been very good this year and it has been possible thanks to the team’s collective effort led by our director. We hope to see good placements for the remaining students too,” said Rajiv Bhushan, spokesperson of NIT.

The students were also upbeat over the response shown by the companies. “The placements so far have been good. Even in mid-recession, it was not that bad. Half of the students have been placed this year and we hope for 100 per cent placements this year,” said Ankit Manaskant, a student of computer science.