Ahmedabad: Despite the talk of slowdown in the global economy and the sub-prime crisis in the US, the students of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have managed to attract higher pay packets, with one of them receiving a record offer of Rs.14.4 million ($360,000).

Briefing mediapersons on the on-campus recruitment drive, IIM-A director Samir K. Barua refused to divulge either the name of the company or that of the student.

The figure is said to be the highest for any IIM student in India.

However, he hastened to add this was an average salary that depended a lot on other factors like the annual bonus, which was in turn based on the candidate's performance.

Barua said IIM-A continues to be the most preferred business school for recruitment as reflected not only in terms of the diversity of organisations that participated in the placement drive but also by the offers that have been made.

The weeklong placement process, which began March 6, saw participation from 260 students and 120 companies, both domestic and foreign.

Compared to last year, the highest international acceptances saw a 20 percent rise in salary that ranged from Rs.11.2 million to Rs.14.4 million, he said.

"In judging an offer do not talk simply of salaries. Talk of the diversities of offers. These are far more better parameters," Barua told quizzing mediapersons, adding that salary figures depended on multifaceted factors such as the company involved, work experience and the candidate's ability.

"Given the adverse market conditions, the salaries offered this year have exceeded all expectations," Piyush Kumar Sinha, chairperson of placement, said.

The average domestic salary among the accepted offers was Rs.1.78 million, a 30 percent jump from last years' average figure of Rs.1.37 million. The average international salary was $1,19,000, which again is a significant jump from previous years, he said.

The lateral placements - for students with work experience - conducted in January and February 2008 was also unprecedented both in terms of scale and diversity, Sinha said.

A significant amount of prior work experience of the 2006-08 batch led to an increase in the number of students eligible for lateral placements from 89 last year to 112 this year.

With this increase, even the number of firms participating in the process shot up to 37. They made a total of 103 offers. The average salary for the lateral placements as a whole saw an increase from Rs.1.62 million last year to Rs.1.83 million.

Replying to a query, Barua said consultancy, as always, has been strong with 30.89 percent share of placements followed finance-markets with 19.11 percent. There was a fair share from other recruiters like finance-general (10.98 percent), marketing (6.10 percent), operations (3.25 percent), real estate (1.22 percent), and entrepreneurship (3.66 percent) among others.

With 11 graduates opting to start their own ventures, the trend of taking this road less travelled has grown stronger, Sinha said.

These students planned to start their ventures in areas as diverse as logistics, manufacturing, advertising, finance and agro-processing in addition to IT.

Sinha said IIM-A is also promoting this trend. The institute recently came up with the policy of a 'placement holiday' which allows graduating students who choose entrepreneurship as a career option to opt for the institutes' placement process for two years after passing out from the institute. However, no student person has availed of this option.

Dushyant Mullar, who plans a venture in the services domain, said: "The culture is wonderfully supportive in terms of encouraging entrepreneurship. Be it professors, peers or the institute, support is one thing certainly not lacking."

Concurred another entrepreneurial student Siddharth Jaiswal: "I feel the biggest learning for me at IIM-A has been to think big." IANS