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Here the point to be noted is that the average salaries, as declared by B-schools, leave much scope for stipulation and manipulation than the revelation of median salaries, which only very few institutes do.

Further, this placement showed again a disturbing sign where institutes were hiding more than what they were revealing. Data disclosure at IIMs and other B-schools hit a new low where the press releases were more prominent for hype, i.e., placements over in 6 hours, than the relevant matter. Among IIMs, IIM Lucknow lead the pack where the data sheet provided looked more like a classified document than placement statistics. Interestingly, IIM Lucknow was most visible in its campaign for support to MHRD and went full fire in media but same enthusiasm was completely missing when it came to providing placement data. The other IIM which shied away from providing data was IIM Indore.

However, on the positive side, the institutes, which were very forthcoming on the data, were IIM Kozikode, XIMB Bhubneshwar, SPJIMIR Mumbai, IIFT Delhi and MDI Gurgaon, signaling a hope that institute governance is still there and hopefully more B-schools might follow suit later.

Placements 2004 also saw new features being introduced where XLRI decided to move its placement process online while ISB continued with its refreshing rolling placement process compared to mad placements week at IIMs. We hope that over a period of time, other leading institutes will also migrate to rolling placement process.

The other ever-missing factor which is of significant interest, is the courage required by institutes to admit a figure, which is not 100% placements. As this reporting moves into new cycles, we hope some institutes will prefer to report 99% placements rather than forcing students to sign off or mis-reporting. Without this the data at Indian B-schools looks as credible as balance sheet of Enron.

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