31 companies blacklisted from IIT campus placements after flurry of complaints

Miss Alone

Prime VIP
The panel responsible for campus hiring across all the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in the country has blacklisted 31 companies and banned them from recruiting students for a year after a flurry of complaints against the firms.
The All IITs Placement Committee (AIPC) drew up the blacklist on August 14, but the names were released after IIT-Bombay revealed on Thursday nine of these companies that were banned from campus recruitments. Most of these firms are startups.
The convener of the committee, Prof Kaustubha Mohanty, said the exercise is a precaution taken in the interest of students in all the 23 IITs of the country.

“We decided that when we ask a particular company to register with us, we will try to ask for data on their sources of funding, statement of accounts, balance sheet, and number of employees. We used to ask for a lot of details earlier too, but not so stringently,” he said.
The banned companies will have to go through intense scrutiny before they are allowed to recruit students after the one-year embargo gets over.
Around 25 students from IIT-Bombay were affected by the nine firms that were banned later.
The Mumbai-based premier tech institute said it will be cautious with startups.
“Startups will be allowed after a good background check such as proper funding to support the recruitment, and growth prospects. Our aim is to avoid job offers being revoked or delays in joining date in the next placement season,” said Dipesh Chauhan, placement manager at IIT-Bombay.
AIPC convener Mohanty too followed a similar line on startups.
He said: “Now that there is a government notification following the Startup India campaign on defining startups, we will be following these guidelines.”

The blacklisted 31 are Zettata; NowFloats; ConsultLane; Zimply; PepperTap; Portea Medical; Babajob; GPSK; Hopscotch; SmartTrak Solar Systems Pvt. Ltd.; Crayon Data India Pvt Ltd.; Glow Homes Technologies Pvt Ltd, Tescra Software Pvt Ltd / RockON Technologies; Grofers; Tenova India Pvt Ltd, Verity Knowledge Solutions; ExcellenceTech.; Stayzilla; Roadrunnr; LexInnova; LeGarde Burnett Group; Johnson Electric, Japan; Mera Hunar; Fundamental Education; CashCare Technology, Holamed; IndusInsight; ClickLabs; Grabhouse; Medd.
The committee has also banned Zomato from recruiting for another year.
Of the nine firms on the IIT-Bombay blacklist, GPSK, Johnson Electric, China, Portea Medical, Cashcare Technologies and PepperTap were blacklisted for revoking job offers made to students. The LeGarde Burnett Group was banned for revoking and offer and having a fake office address.
Another company named Mera Hunar was barred from campus recruitments as it came with a different name and hired students for another startup. IndusInsight was blacklisted for delaying the joining dates of candidates.
The past few months recorded several startups delaying job offers made during campus placements. Several top firms – including ecommerce giant Flipkart — pushed back the joining dates of recruits from several top institutes by at least six months.
The IIT-Bombay decision follows months of speculation that a slowdown in the start-up sector was hurting placements in India’s top schools. At present, start-ups account for almost a third of campus job offers across IITs and IIMs.
 
Top