Calcutta, Nov. 29: Over 60 engineering graduates hired by Wipro Technologies protested outside the company office today because it had asked them to work in the BPO division for at least a year for lesser pay.

The recruits, standing outside Wipro’s Sector V office, said their offer letters mentioned they had been hired as project managers for Wipro Technologies, not Wipro BPO.

According to Wipro Technologies’ sources, a slash in the number of projects may be why the company diverted the recruits to the BPO. Company officials were unavailable for comment.

The graduates had been offered placement during campus interviews in March 2007. They got their offer letters in September that year.

“In August 2008, we got a mail from Wipro Technologies saying that our tentative joining date would be March 2009. But on November 25 we got another mail saying we would have to join the Wipro BPO division for a 12 to 18-month stint after which we may be shifted to Wipro Technologies,” said Nairrit Sen Roy, of the Institute of Technology and Marine Engineering near Raichak.

They have time till December 5 to reply else the offer will be cancelled. “We are engineering graduates, so why should we join a BPO? After a year, we won’t be considered freshers, neither will the stint in a BPO be counted as experience by IT companies,” said Sayantan Mukherjee, of Bengal Institute of Technology in Salt Lake.

The recruits were offered an annual package of Rs 2.7-3.25 lakh earlier, but will now get Rs 1.6 lakh a year.