Covid-19: Gartner revokes job offers at IIMs; IITs too witness cancellation

With countries virtually shutting down amid the rising Covid-19 pandemic, recruiters, especially multinationals, are revisiting their hiring plans, throwing the placement processes of India’s top management and technology institutes into disarray.
Several students of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have found their job offers revoked by US-based research and advisory firm Gartner.
IIM Calcutta and IIM Ahmedabad have confirmed the revocations, with an official at the former’s placement panel saying Gartner rescinded its final placement offers as well as those for internships.
“The institute is trying to contact them to find an agreeable outcome,” the IIM Calcutta official said. Amit Karna, chairperson of placements at IIM Ahmedabad, said: “Gartner has revoked offers made at the final placements. It had hired three students. No other firm has revoked final offers. The institute is finding new opportunities for affected students by reaching out to our alumni network, existing and new recruiters.”
When contacted, Gartner refused to comment. A few students of IIM Bangalore took to LinkedIn, saying their summer placements and job offers were rescinded by a US-based firm. But IIM Bangalore said it was in touch with the company, and trying to find other offers for the affected students.
U Dinesh Kumar, chair, career development services, IIM Bangalore, said: “All firms have told us they are going to stand by their commitments. Offers have only been postponed. The companies are trying to work out plans once there is clarity on the lockdown after April 15. Mostly, financial sector firms have postponed offers, as they haven’t been able to begin internships due to logistics and data safety issues.”
Kumar agreed some Gulf-based firms had withdrawn their summer placement offers because of travel restrictions, but the placement team had found other opportunities for the affected students.
Taking a middle path, a leading fast-moving consumer goods multinational has offered virtual assignments to those it picked for summer internships instead of postponing their commitment. The company is likely to take a call on final placements after the lockdown is over, as management trainees joining will happen only in June or July, sources said.
At IIM Calcutta, a start-up has revoked seven internship offers.
“Some of our prominent regular recruiters have come forward to hire additional interns. The placement team is arranging new internships for those who lost their opportunities,” the IIM Calcutta official said. An official of IIM Shillong’s placement committee said while none of the full-time offers had been revoked, certain medium-sized organisations and start-ups had pulled out summer internship offers. “We are dealing with an unprecedented situation, and the placement season has also been affected. We feel that the greater impact of the pandemic will be felt next year, because there could be cases of reduced hiring across sectors to cover up the losses incurred,” the official said.
Sources said offers from US-based companies were the worst affected.
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have also been grappling with similar cancellations, especially by international recruiters. The All IITs’ Placement Committee (AIPC) has written to recruiters, requesting them not to cancel offers.

So far, IITs including Delhi, Kanpur, and Madras have seen at least one recruiter revoking job offers.

With no income and food, Dharavi gasps for air as Covid-19 cases increase

The roads are empty, the shops closed, and some areas are cordoned off. Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, is locked down like the rest of Mumbai. However, the rising number of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases in thisteeming shantytown, where people live in huts and decrepit tenements, has put it front and centre of India’s fight against the coronavirus outbreak.

So far, Dharavi has reported five cases, including one death — that of a 56-year-old man. But there is fear that the numbers could inch up in a place where people grapple daily with overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. To add to their misery, the lockdown has left residents with no income and little food.

Rajesh Tope, Maharashtra’s health minister, told Business Standard that Dharavi was a grave concern for the government, given the density of its population and the poverty of its residents. “We are ensuring there is strict adherence to the rules of the lockdown in Dharavi. We do not allow crowds to collect, but it isn’t easy. There’s a space constraint, people are poor and without work right now. There are challenges,” he says.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) estimate that the average monthly income of a household in Dharavi is below Rs 5,000. Around 5-10 per cent of its population of 1.5 million, spread over 613 hectares and seven Mumbai wards, have headed back to their home towns in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar after the lockdown.

Sajeevan Jaiswal, a cloth merchant, is dipping into his meagre savings to somehow get by till the lockdown ends. His shop, near the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation office in Dharavi, is shut. Jaiswal fears for the safety of his family — his wife, two sons, and a daughter-in-law — who live above his shop in a small, 200 square feet space.

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“I don’t let them step out of the house,” he says. “If groceries have to be brought, I do it. We don’t have the luxury of using hand sanitizers and hand wash. We share a small bar of soap between us,” he says, speaking through a cheap mask, his only means of protection outside of home.

Jaiswal’s fears are echoed by Anil Shivram Kasare, a social worker and resident of Dharavi. The biggest challenge, he says, comes from the slum’s public toilets. “There are 1,500 public toilets in Dharavi. This is not enough for the people who reside here. But what can we do? We have to use them. The danger of catching the virus lurks everywhere in a slum,” he says.

Dharavi’s narrow bylanes, its lack of hygiene, and large families squeezed into small spaces — some of them near open gutters — make the area a veritable nightmare for any effort to step up cleanliness. To tackle the situation, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has set up a branch in each of the seven wards of Dharavi.

Every branch has around 150 sanitation workers who fan out across the length and breadth of the slum pocket, sweeping the roads and collecting garbage twice a day. Fumigation is done every two days. But the garbage piles up quickly, says Akhtar Khan, an advocate who helps run a free food delivery service for Dharavi’s poor. “These days, people have been frequently sweeping their homes, no matter how small, in an attempt to keep them clean. It’s a good habit. But let’s see how long they do it,” he says.