If you are looking forward to working with the good old Maharatnas and Navratnas and earning a handsome salary, you better get cracking at GATE 2014. The number of applicants for GATE 2014 (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) is expected to be 11.82 lakh from last year’s 9.85 lakh — up 20 per cent. There were 6.86 lakh applicants in 2012. GATE is an all-India examination conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and the seven IITs.
“With the turbulence in the Indian economy, most MBA aspirants, 70-75 per cent of whom are engineering graduates, are shifting away from CAT and other MBA exams to GATE,” says Vijay Jha, Senior Vice-President at Career Launcher. “These engineers find GATE a better option than an MBA to get jobs in reputed PSUs, which offer as much as Rs 10 lakh a year. It is better than what 90-95 per cent of B-school graduates get.” Jha expects the number of GATE applicants to increase by 20 per cent in the coming year.
Aditya Reddy, Director of GATE Forum, a prep company, puts this figure at 13-14 lakh. “There has been an increase in demand from PSUs, that are hiring engineering graduates based on their GATE scores,” says Reddy “The entry-level salary for engineering PSU jobs is around Rs 6 lakh with a cost-to-company package as high as Rs 12-13 lakh, which is much better than most MBA graduates earn.” The number of PSUs taking the GATE will also increase in 2014, he adds.
Earlier, PSUs used to conduct their own written examinations but they have started using GATE scores in the screening process for two years now. “GATE is conducted by IITs and a large number of students take the test; this provides PSUs with a large pool of good candidates to choose from,” explains Reddy. GATE 2014 is being conducted by IIT Kharagpur.
More than 14 PSUs will use GATE scores to recruit engineers in 2014, including Vizag Steel, which will recruit management trainees through GATE. Power Grid will also hire executive trainees (electrical) based on GATE scores and will offer a CTC of Rs 13.4 lakh (on completion of training). Other top PSUs that recruit through GATE are NHPC, HPCL, GAIL, NTPC, IOCL and BPCL.
In 2014, GATE will go completely online for all 22 streams from February 1 to March 2, 2014, with a new paper on ‘ecology and evolution’. The results will be announced on March 28.