According to the placement office at the institute, students with a technical expertise are being sought after by the financial institutions.

“Financial institutions and investment banks like Capital One and Deutsche Bank recruit engineers for the technical evaluation of their projects. Whenever a financial institution gives loan it has to asses the technical viability of the project,” said Prof B K Mathur, the placement in-charge of IIT-Kharagpur.

The average salary offered during placement has surged to Rs 11 lakh per annum compared to Rs 7.7 lakh last year.

With companies and research institutions going for obtaining patents for their products, the intellectual property rights firms are also hiring the technicians for their domain knowledge of specific areas.

Prof Mathur says this is a new trend, which indicate focus on knowledge economy, as about 15 to 20 students have been hired by the legal firms that facilitate the development of intellectual property rights.

Some big players of the real estate Indian companies are also flocking to the institute.

Recruitment by the real estate industry has increased to 30 this year.

In another interesting development, the number of offers made by the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to recruit students has increased by four times and gone up to 102.

The average salary offered by them has also increased from Rs 4.5 lakh last year to Rs 6.5 lakh this year.