While the departments have no good news for the current batches, their struggle is on to place the last year's students.

At the University Business School (UBS), only 50 of its 140 students have been placed so far. According to the authorities, huge uncertainty prevails for the rest.

Professor S K Chadha, the training and placement officer at UBS, said: "Placements are really slow this year. Though we will have a few more placements by the end of this month when the results of this semester are declared, there seems to be no chance of a 100 per cent placement." The situation is worse at the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) where not a single student has a job in hand this year.

Though several of them had offers from various companies, they are still awaiting confirmation. On the other hand, 50-odd students of last year's batch too are awaiting placement.

HCL and Wipro are among the companies that have failed to honour their last year's commitment.

UIET's training and placement officer Dr Gurdeep Singh said: "Though around 75 per cent students have been placed, none of the companies have confirmed the placement. A clear picture will emerge only after June." Dr Gurdeep added that all departments were making concrete efforts to get jobs for their students. The university is even calling those companies which were ignored during the previous years.

Though the situation is better at the Punjab Engineering College, not all its students have been placed yet. Training and placement officer of PEC Prof K K Garg said: "We are trying to get all the students placed and are quite hopeful to meet the target. Meltdown definitely has had an effect on the market and several companies are not even taking students for training as their production has come down."

The Satyam effect