Quick Verdict
IIT Kharagpur (KGP), in West Bengal, wins on Placements over IIT Guwahati (IITG), in Assam. Kharagpur pulled in more job offers, more international offers, more pre-placement offers (PPOs), and a higher top package in the same recruitment cycle, and its recent graduates report a higher median salary. Guwahati is not far behind on placement rate and still draws strong recruiters, but on every hard placement number available, Kharagpur leads.
Snapshot
| Metric (2023 placement season) | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Guwahati |
|---|---|---|
| Total job offers | 1,600 | 1,112 |
| International offers | 45 | 20 |
| Pre-Placement Offers (PPOs) | 500 | 215 |
| Recruiters that visited campus | 300 | 255 |
| Highest CTC offered | ₹2.68 crore/year | ₹2.42 crore/year |
| Median UG salary (NIRF data) | ₹20.65 lakh | ₹19.48 lakh |
| Sample top recruiters | Amazon, Dell, IBM, ZS Associates, Accenture, Google, Microsoft, EXL Services | Larsen & Toubro, Schlumberger, Piramal, TVS R&D, GAIL |
Source for the placement-season figures: pw.live. Source for median salary: jagranjosh.com.
Detailed Analysis
IIT Kharagpur (KGP) — established in 1951 as India's first Indian Institute of Technology, in Kharagpur, West Bengal — recorded 1,600 total job offers against Guwahati's 1,112 in the same 2023 placement season, and pulled in more than double the international offers (45 vs 20) (pw.live). Kharagpur's recruiter list also skews toward large global tech and consulting names — Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Accenture — which tends to correlate with a stronger PPO pipeline; Kharagpur logged 500 PPOs against Guwahati's 215 (pw.live). Kharagpur is also frequently cited for placement records with recruiters like Google, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs, and for its QS World University Rankings standing in the top 400 globally (geeksforgeeks.org).
IIT Guwahati (IITG) — established in 1994 as the sixth IIT, on a 700-acre campus on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in Assam (geeksforgeeks.org) — is not a weak placements story: it still drew 255 recruiters to campus and posted a highest package of ₹2.42 crore/year, close behind Kharagpur's ₹2.42-crore-vs-2.68-crore gap (pw.live). Its recruiter mix leans toward core-engineering and infrastructure firms — Larsen & Toubro, Schlumberger, GAIL — reflecting a different placement profile than Kharagpur's tech-heavy list.
On rankings that indirectly track how recruiters and evaluators perceive each institute's overall pull (which affects placement outcomes over time), Kharagpur has consistently outranked Guwahati: on the NIRF Engineering category, Kharagpur has ranked around 5th while Guwahati has ranked 7th to 8th depending on the year and source cited (jagranjosh.com; infinitylearn.com). On QS World University Rankings, Kharagpur has placed well ahead of Guwahati in multiple recent years (2024: 285 vs 364; 2023: 250 vs 384), and the gap widens further specifically in the QS Engineering & Technology subject ranking (74 vs 301–350) (pw.live).
Median UG salary data reported via NIRF puts Kharagpur at ₹20.65 lakh against Guwahati's ₹19.48 lakh — a modest but real gap that lines up with the offer-volume and top-package numbers above (jagranjosh.com). The sourced data does not include a branch-wise placement breakdown (e.g., CSE-only packages) for either institute, so this comparison is necessarily at the whole-institute level.
Verdict
IIT Kharagpur is the stronger choice for Placements specifically: it beats IIT Guwahati on offer volume, international offers, PPOs, top package, and median salary in every figure available. The one condition under which a reader should pick Guwahati instead is if the target branch or recruiter type favors Guwahati's specific strengths — for instance, if a student is aiming squarely at the core-engineering/infrastructure recruiters (L&T, Schlumberger, GAIL) that visit Guwahati, or is weighing other factors entirely (location, campus culture, a specific research group) where placements are a secondary concern. On raw placement outcomes, though, Kharagpur is the safer bet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which IIT has better placements overall, Kharagpur or Guwahati?
IIT Kharagpur, based on 2023 season data: more total offers, more PPOs, more international offers, and a higher top package than IIT Guwahati (pw.live).
Q: What was the highest package at each institute?
₹2.68 crore/year at Kharagpur and ₹2.42 crore/year at Guwahati in the 2023 season (pw.live).
Q: What is the median salary difference between the two?
NIRF-reported data shows Kharagpur's median UG salary at ₹20.65 lakh versus Guwahati's ₹19.48 lakh (jagranjosh.com).
Q: Do more recruiters visit Kharagpur than Guwahati?
Yes — 300 recruiters visited Kharagpur versus 255 at Guwahati in the 2023 season (pw.live).
Q: Are the top recruiters different at each institute?
Yes. Kharagpur's list is tech/consulting-heavy (Amazon, Dell, IBM, Accenture, Google, Microsoft, EXL Services); Guwahati's leans core-engineering and infrastructure (Larsen & Toubro, Schlumberger, Piramal, TVS R&D, GAIL) (pw.live).
Q: Is there branch-wise placement data (e.g., for CSE) comparing the two?
Not in the sourced data used for this comparison — the available figures are whole-institute totals only, so branch-specific claims can't be made reliably here.
Q: Does Kharagpur's older, larger campus explain its placement edge?
It's plausibly a contributing factor — Kharagpur is the oldest IIT (1951) with a larger faculty base, while Guwahati (1994) is comparatively younger and smaller — but the sourced facts don't establish causation, only the correlation between the two institutes' age/size and their placement numbers (geeksforgeeks.org).
Q: Is IIT Guwahati still a good placement option despite trailing Kharagpur?
Yes — a placement percentage of 78.04% and 255 recruiters visiting campus indicate a solid placement record in absolute terms, just behind Kharagpur's numbers (pw.live).
Related
For the complete picture beyond Placements — placements, academics, campus life, and more — see the full IIT Kharagpur vs IIT Guwahati comparison.