Chennai: The ‘Naan Madhalwan’ scheme, a flagship project launched by the DMK government, has made significant strides in providing job opportunities to students in government engineering, arts and science colleges. The scheme also encouraged healthy competition between government and private colleges in providing placements with good salaries last year.

A senior official of the Higher Education Department told DTNext that Anna University, Goindi Campus, topped the table among government engineering institutes by bagging the number one rank with a placement score of 60.06%.

“Of the total 610 students admitted under this scheme, 436 have been placed in various companies,” he said.

The rank was calculated for each college with placement score (45 marks), college weightage (20 marks) and salary package (35 marks). Accordingly, Government College of Engineering of Theni district recorded 62.04% placements, securing the sixth rank. “Around 30 government engineering colleges participated in the placement drive under the project,” he said.

A total of 315 private engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University were included in the scheme. “Milam Engineering College bagged the first position with 95.60 per cent placements,” he added.

Among government arts and science colleges across the state, Madras University occupied the first position by securing placements for 660 students. “Students from around 218 colleges took admission in the scheme,” he said, adding, “The government C Kundaswamy Naidu College in Chennai came third in the male placement ranking”.

Among private arts and science colleges, Lakshmi Bangaru Arts and Science College in Changalpattu, affiliated to the University of Madras, topped the list with 203 students. “A total of 548 colleges affiliated to all government universities have participated and benefited from this scheme,” he added.