New Delhi, Jan 31 (IANS): Delhi, Bihar and Jharkhand lead in supplying the best talent pool of engineers in India, a report released Friday said.

The National Employability Report Engineer Graduates 2014, is based on the graduate class of 2013, and covers 1.2 lakh engineering students from more than 520 engineering colleges across 18 Indian states.

"Looking at state-wise distribution of employable talent, we can see that while certain states produce huge quantity of engineers, the average employability is significantly low," said Himanshu Aggarwal, CEO, Aspiring Minds, an employability solutions company, that compiled the report.

"It is clear that states need to be conscious towards better education quality rather than building more capacity," Aggarwal said, adding the report delves into the employability of engineering graduates -- their capability, qualifications and aspirations.

According to the report, Delhi (north) shows highest employability, followed by Kolkata (east) and cities in the west.

"The lowest employability figures were observed among colleges in southern states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, despite having the highest number of engineering colleges," it added.

The report also said employability numbers varied from city to city within the same industry.

"Employability for IT product roles in Delhi is as high 13 percent, and as low as one percent in Chennai. Bangalore with 3.7 percent employability emerges the best among southern and western cities in the IT product sector," it said.

The report added the reason for this "skew in employability" is the proliferation of engineering colleges in southern and western India that has brought down the employability figures.

"In comparison, there are far fewer engineering colleges both in Delhi and Kolkata," it said.