Kolkata, Dec 28 (IANS): Offers were made to as many as 1,200 students at the end of phase one of the 2017-18 placement season at IIT Kharagpur -- a 15 per cent jump from last year, a statement from the institute said on Thursday.

This placement season started with enrolment of 2,054 students which is the maximum at an individual Indian Institute of Technology.

"This is due to the wide variety of disciplines that are offered by IIT Kharagpur. The 1,200 offers are due to 200 companies that visited during the phase 1," the statement said.

In a new trend this year, PSUs started visiting the campus during November, which is much before the actual placement session started.

The placements for Undergraduate (UG) students touched the 75 per cent mark which is an improvement of 12 per cent while the placements for Postgraduate (PG) students is at 38 per cent showing an improvement of 14 per cent compared to last year. B.Arch saw a jump of 20 per cent this year compared to the last.

"This year the Career Development Centre (CDC) has initiated a placement drive for PhDs graduating/graduated within two months and this gave a fruitful outcome with 26 PhDs getting placed across reputed teaching and research institutions," the release added.