I think unless genuinely interested in Mechanical Engineering, you should opt for Metallurgical or Chemical at NIT Rourkela. NIT Roukela is one of the Best NITs of India, and probably the Best when it comes to core branches. It has excellent faculty, infrastructure, facilities as well as a huge campus with excellent culture and college life. As far as Placements are concerned most of the Top Conglomerates like Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Reliance, Vedanta, Aditya Birla Group, JSW, Dr Reddys, Piramal Healthcare, Jindal Stainless, etc recruit exciting talents from NIT RKL Campus.

Secondly Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering are two of the most student friendly branches and have a structured curriculum as well as excellent scope if you have interest in Research. In case you develop interest in IT/Software/Non Core/Finance sectors, NIT Rourkela being a top NIT, provides excellent opportunities at par with IITs with most of the Top MnCs like Walmart, IBM, American Express, Goldman Sachs and Amazon opening for most branches during Internships and Placements.

A large number of NIT RKL Students move to Top US Universities or Higher Technical Institutes like IIT and IISc for pursuing Masters and Doctoral degree. Overall NIT Roukela has a better International and Employer Outlook, which perhaps might prove to be a factor in training and placement prospects.

For more information and college prediction do follow the link below

https://engineering.careers360.com/jee-main-college-predictor?icn=QnA&ici=qna_answer