Infosys AU CUIC TNSLPP Drive: 2026 Off-Campus Guide for Freshers

The AU CUIC TNSLPP Infosys Special Drive was a one-time programme run through Anna University in 2018 for final-year students across Chennai, Madurai, and Coimbatore zones. It is not active in 2026.

If you arrived here searching for registration details, this article explains what the drive was, why it ran once, and what channels now replace it for Tamil Nadu engineering students applying to Infosys.

What Was the AU CUIC TNSLPP Infosys Special Drive?

The drive’s name combined three institutional acronyms that had a specific meaning in the Tamil Nadu higher education context.

AU, CUIC, and TNSLPP: What Each Term Meant

• AU: Anna University, Chennai, the affiliating body for over 500 engineering colleges across the Chennai, Madurai, and Coimbatore zones of Tamil Nadu.
• CUIC: Centre for University Industry Collaboration, Anna University’s industry-linkage cell. CUIC negotiated placement drives on behalf of affiliated colleges, coordinating logistics, scheduling, and access to hiring events across multiple companies.
• TNSLPP: Commonly cited as the Tamil Nadu Skills and Livelihood Placement Programme, a state-government-supported initiative that organised mass hiring events for graduates from government and government-aided engineering institutions. Infosys notifications did not always print the full form, but the label identified state-coordinated drives run through Anna University’s infrastructure.

The 2018 Drive: Eligibility and Format

The 2018 special drive targeted a specific cohort: final-year B.E./B.Tech students from Anna University-affiliated colleges who had a CGPA between 7.00 and 7.49 up to the seventh semester. Students with CGPA of 7.5 and above were explicitly ineligible. That band was expected to qualify through the standard on-campus hiring process. Students already placed through on-campus drives or any previous TNSLPP event were also not eligible.

Eligible branches covered most engineering disciplines:

• CSE, ECE, EEE, EIE, ICE, IT
• Mechanical, Mechatronics, Automobile
• Aeronautical, Civil
• Bio-Medical and Bio-Technology

The academic eligibility bar required:

• Minimum 65% aggregate from Class 10 onwards
• CGPA between 7.00 and 7.49 (up to seventh semester)
• No standing arrears at the time of application

The selection process ran across two days. Day 1 covered the online aptitude test and results declaration on the Anna University website. Day 2 covered technical and HR interviews for shortlisted candidates. Drive venues spanned all three zones: Sri Sairam Engineering College (Chennai), K.L.N. College of Engineering (Madurai), and Sri Eshwar College of Engineering (Coimbatore).

Why These Drives Are No Longer Running

TNSLPP-type drives were reasonably common between 2015 and 2020. They addressed a specific gap: students at government and aided colleges who met most of Infosys’s criteria but fell slightly short of the cutoffs that premium private colleges cleared. The COVID-19 period disrupted in-person selection events, and when IT hiring resumed at scale post-2021, companies moved toward centralised online assessments and company-run certification platforms rather than university-coordinated event drives.

Infosys formalised this shift through InfyTQ and HackWithInfy. Both platforms let any student in India compete for shortlisting without needing a special drive invitation. The result was more scalable for Infosys and more accessible for students. Any candidate with internet access and a working laptop can now prepare and test independently.

How Infosys Hires Off-Campus in 2026

No university-brokered special drive channel exists in 2026. All freshers, including those from Anna University-affiliated colleges, apply through the same national process.

The three active entry channels:

• Careers portal: Register at infosys.com/careers and apply to the active freshers listing. After application review, shortlisted candidates receive an online aptitude test invitation by email. This channel is open year-round for candidates who meet the CGPA and backlog requirements.
• InfyTQ: Infosys’s certification and learning platform at infytq.infosys.com. Certified students are shortlisted preferentially for the Specialist Programmer track and carry a stronger candidacy for the Power Programmer track. Completing InfyTQ certification is the closest current equivalent to the TNSLPP’s “sponsored pathway” advantage.
• HackWithInfy: Infosys’s annual online coding contest. Top performers receive Power Programmer offers directly, bypassing the standard application queue. Participation is open to any final-year or pre-final-year engineering student.

For a full comparison of how on-campus, off-campus, and referral channels differ on eligibility and track access, see Infosys Recruitment Channels 2026.

The Three Infosys Tracks in 2026

The 2018 TNSLPP drive led only to the System Engineer entry. In 2026, three distinct tracks carry meaningfully different starting packages:

Track	Starting CTC	Key eligibility note
System Engineer (SE)	₹3.6 LPA	CGPA 6.0+, no active backlogs
Specialist Programmer (SP)	₹6.5 LPA	InfyTQ certification preferred; stronger DSA test component
Power Programmer (PP)	₹9.5 LPA	7.5+ CGPA; top HackWithInfy or InfyTQ advanced tier performance

Students from the 2018 TNSLPP drive’s CGPA band (7.00 to 7.49) now map directly onto SE-track eligibility. The CGPA ceiling that made the special drive necessary in 2018 does not exist in the 2026 off-campus process. A candidate with 7.2 CGPA who completes InfyTQ certification is eligible to apply for the SP track through the careers portal, something the 2018 TNSLPP drive did not offer.

For a detailed breakdown of what each interview round expects and how to prepare for each track, the Infosys Interview Guide for Freshers: 2026 Edition covers the full three-stage process.

Preparing for the Infosys Aptitude Test

The aptitude test format in 2026 is structurally similar to what the 2018 TNSLPP drive used: quantitative ability, logical reasoning, and verbal ability. The SE-track test is the same whether you apply on-campus or off-campus. The SP track adds a more demanding coding component focused on data structures and algorithms.

Number series questions appear across both quantitative and logical sections. FACE Prep’s most repeated Infosys number series questions covers the patterns that recur across test years, which is useful whether you’re targeting SE or SP shortlisting.

InfyTQ preparation and aptitude test preparation reinforce each other. The platform’s programming foundation track covers the same logical and coding concepts that appear in the SP-track test section. Students who finish InfyTQ’s foundation modules before their aptitude test tend to perform better on the coding component, since the underlying logic practice transfers directly. Starting InfyTQ six to eight weeks before your target test date gives enough time to complete the foundation track and run through past aptitude question sets.

AI Skills and Infosys Compensation in 2026

The 2018 TNSLPP drive was partly a response to constrained fresher supply meeting Infosys’s standard hiring criteria. The company ran a special drive to widen its Tamil Nadu talent pool. In 2026, the conversation has shifted from CGPA-band adjustment to skills differentiation.

According to Q4 FY26 earnings commentary from CEO Salil Parekh, Infosys now offers different starting compensation for candidates with AI-attuned skills, and the company is actively building a forward-deployed engineering pool to work on AI solutions directly with clients. Infosys onboarded 20,000 freshers in FY26 and plans the same number for FY27.

That context matters for how you approach the application. A candidate who pairs SE-level aptitude readiness with demonstrated AI project work occupies a different compensation tier from one who only clears the aptitude threshold. For students from Tier-2 and Tier-3 colleges across Tamil Nadu, the absence of a special drive has an upside. The SE entry is nationally open. What differentiates shortlisting and eventual pay is increasingly practical skill, not CGPA band or university affiliation.

For a structured path from placement basics to applied AI skills, the 2026 AI roadmap for Indian engineering students lays out the progression without requiring a career pivot. The SP gap over SE stands at ₹2.9 LPA from the starting point. For students aiming above the SP track into the AI-skills compensation tier Parekh described, TinkerLLM at ₹299 lets you test whether building with LLMs fits into your prep timeline before committing further.