MUMBAI: Pre-placement offers or PPOs are on the rise at the Indian Institutes of Technology and acceptance rates on students’ part have peaked too. Companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and Amazon are avoiding the early placement rush and instead offering jobs to the graduating class of 2018 via the PPO route.PPOs at IIT Delhi have touched almost 170 and the count at IIT-Madras is 114—a 56% rise in pre-placement offers from the previous year. IIT Kanpur has got around 125 and the number is 134 at IIT Bombay, 125-plus at IIT Roorkee and 110 at IIT Guwahati. Acceptance at Delhi is a little over 50% and it’s 75% at Madras. Among the younger institutes, students of IIT Hyderabad have already got 45 PPOs and IIT-Ropar 10 (5 in 2016).Professor Manu Santhanam, advisor, training and placement, IIT Madras, said: “One of the principal reasons is an increase in the number of internships in companies that are large recruiters. The PPOs are a reward for the excellent performance of students in internships.” The placement officer at IIT Delhi said, “Not only is the number of PPOs higher this year, even the acceptance rate has gone up. It is normally not so high.”“More than 90% students have accepted the PPOs. This year has seen an exceptionally high number because they have received very good PPOs of quality jobs,’ said N P Padhy, placement head, IIT Roorkee.At most institutes, nearly 55-60% of the PPOs have gone to students of computer science and electrical engineering. Qualcomm, Microsoft and Wipro are the largest recruiters on most campuses. Last year, Samsung, which picked a host of IITians last year through the PPO route, was among the top payers.Each IIT has a different policy for students who accept PPOs. Some IITs such as Madras don’t allow such candidates to participate in the placement season. Some other institutes such as IIT Bombay ask the companies if the candidates can continue to sit for interviews and keep their choices open.Students are thrilled that the PPOs are pouring in. “It looks like a good placement season,” said one who added that hiring was picking up and that internship was a great way for candidates to test the waters before signing up for a job.“Our departments’ emphasis on criticality of summer internships and the popular trend among recruiters is to hire tried-and-tested talent and make a informed decision,” said an IIT Kanpur faculty.The placement season kickstarts on December 1 and PPOs come in till the end of October. “The vagaries of the economy due to demonetization had hit placements last year. A lot of start-ups were blacklisted too. That had an impact on last year’s placement. But this season looks good already,” said a placement team member from IIT Roorkee.