We present an analysis of near-IR images, obtained with the instrument PANIC at the Baade telescope (Las Campanas), of the star-forming regions associated with the sources IRAS 12272-6240 and IRAS 17149-3916, selected from the southern sky survey of sub-mm cores of Beltran et al. (2006). We identify two young clusters associated with each one of the IRAS sources. The near-IR color-color and color-magnitude diagrams are used to detect young stars with masses between 0.7 and 30 solar masses. We find approximately 190 and 285 sources in the IRAS 12272-6240 and IRAS 17149-3916 regions, showing near-IR excesses due to circumstellar material and that probably belong to the identified young clusters.