Bhubaneswar, March 26: Both government and private engineering colleges have failed to get sufficient recruiters to colleges and so students have come together to help themselves by organising special job placement drives.

In a first-of-its-kind “by the students, of the students and for the students” initiative, Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) has started a drive called the “Sunday Off Campus”.

The first drive under this initiative was organised on March 23. Under the banner BPUT students’ union, students from around 25 colleges took part in the placement drive that was completely free of cost. Around 170 students took part in the placement drive out of which 52 were placed. The companies which took part included Ultimate Solutions, Inteksrv Group Priya Engineering Works, Robust Info, Star Soft Solutions, Sanchaya Group, 3s Solutions and Reez Solutions.

“It is a one-of-its-kind drive and we are really happy that the first attempt was completed successfully. Of course it was difficult to convince the companies and many did not take us seriously initially. However, they agreed to our requests. The feedback from these companies was very positive and most of them have promised to recruit students again,” Samapta Mohanty, one of the students said. “The there has been a lot of queries from students, too. In fact, a lot of students who were interested for the drive could not do so for the ongoing SAIL examination,” he said.

Following continuous demand by the students for better placements, the department of technical education had in November last year launched a central placement cell for students of BPUT. However, the cell is barely functional.

Students rued that the Gandamunda-based placement cell has not been able to conduct a single drive so far.

Authorities of the department said that cell along with national informatics centre was in the process of updating data for the website. The drives will begin soon, said a senior official.

Biswajit Mohanty, chief advisor of the varsity’s students’ union said that more number of campus drives was being planned under the initiative. “We are now trying to target national-level companies. The target is to secure placements for at least 500 students this year,” Mohanty said.

Sushmaita Sahoo, a student, who took part in the drive said that placement scenario in colleges had been very bad this year. Very few companies came for the campus recruitment drives this year. The salary they offered was also too little.

“Not every student gets through campus interviews in institutes. Sometimes many get cheated of their money. It is certainly a good imitative and many students, especially the average ones, will benefit out of it,” said Rishi Jena, another student.

The placement scenario is not very good for the past few years. Even the government colleges are not being able to place 100 per cent students, said Anantanarayan Rout, placement coordinator of a private college adding that he had no information about the students initiative.