Flipkart defers joining dates of recruits, Paytm ready with offers

The ongoing standoff between the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Flipkart, over the e-commerce major's decision to defer joining dates of graduates who had been given job offers, has taken a unexpected turn, The Times of India reported.

Flipkart's rival, digital payments and commerce platform Paytm, said it was extending support to these students and was ready to interview them for a potential job at the Noida-based firm.

"Recommendations started pouring in after some students could not join Flipkart. IIM-Ahmedabad also wrote to us and we have mutually agreed to conduct interviews and select the top talent from among these graduates. In terms of timing, it fits well with our requirements as some freshers from IIMs, XLRI, Indian School of Business are joining us in the coming days," Amit Sinha, VP at Paytm told TOI.

The Alibaba-backed Paytm, which is said to have hired about 50 students from leading business management institutes of the country so far, has a total employee base of about 4,000 people.

IIM-Ahmedabad had earlier written to Flipkart expressing displeasure over the company's move to defer the joining date of its graduates. Though the IIMs are trying to resolve the issue by talking to Flipkart, the e-commerce major maintains that it was in no position to absorb the freshers before December this year.

Flipkart said it would pay a compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh which was also a point of contention between the two parties.

The Economic Times reported that IIM-A had sent a strongly worded letter to Flipkart CEO Binny Bansal, asking him to guarantee the jobs of the students and offer a compensation monthly payment starting June, as against the Rs1.5 lakh compensation that Flipkart had offered as a joining bonus. It also said that Flipkart's move was 'utterly unacceptable'.

IIM-A's placement committee chairperson Asha Kaul has asked for a conference call with Flipkart "where all the relevant stakeholders can engage to reach a mutually acceptable solution", the report added. The letter had also been forwarded to other B-schools to ask if they would be interested to join in on the call.