Decoder | PM Internship Scheme set to roll out in Oct: Eligibility, terms, stipend, and more

One of the interesting announcements in the Union Budget 2024 was the Prime Minister Internship Scheme. Aimed at producing employable youth with skillsets for the future, the scheme is reportedly all set to be rolled out by the end of October.

The internship scheme, as announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget 2024-25 speech, will provide one crore young people with internship opportunities in “500 top companies” in the country. The government expects these one crore youth to be skilled in five years under the scheme.

According to reports, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, in charge of the initiative, is currently in talks with key stakeholders to chalk out the details of the rollout. Here is what the scheme will entail and how it will benefit the eligible youth.

Eligibility for internship

Any person aged between 21 and 24 years is eligible to apply for internship, which is totally voluntary. However, the applicant should not be employed or engaged in full-time education.

Candidates who have graduated from an Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), or with CA or CMA degrees are not eligible. Also, no member of the candidate’s family should be a government employee or an income tax assessee.

Duration of internship

The internship will be for 12 months.

Terms of the scheme

The company offering the internship is supposed to allow the intern to gain actual work experience with a skill in which it is directly involved.

The intern is supposed to spend at least half the time, that is, six months, in gaining actual work experience in the job environment and not in a classroom.

If the organisation is incapable of providing such an environment directly, it must tie up with another organisation within its group or in its supply chain.

Application and selection

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs will launch a dedicated portal for candidates to apply for internships based on the vacancies available in the participating companies.

The portal will match the applicants’ skill sets with company requirements for a smooth and effective recruitment process.

In the first round, candidates will reportedly be shortlisted using artificial intelligence since the government is expecting a massive rush of applications.

Following that, a “neutral panel” comprising both government and industry experts will reportedly select a pool of applicants from which the companies will then choose the interns.

Which companies will offer internships?

The companies have not yet been named but since they will have to bear the cost of training and contribute 10 per cent of the monthly stipend from their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, major CSR spenders such as Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, Infosys, HDFC Bank, ONGC, and NTPC are expected to be on the list.

Stipend and one-time payout

Interns will earn a monthly stipend of Rs 5,000 for 12 months plus Rs 6,000 as a one-time additional payout.

Of this, the Centre will bear Rs 54,000 of the total monthly allowance of Rs 60,000 besides the Rs 6,000 as one-time grant.

As mentioned before, 10 per cent of the stipend (Rs 6,000) and the training cost has to be borne by the companies from their CSR funds.

Questions to be answered

It is not yet clear how the “top 500 companies” will be selected. It is also not clear whether there is a limit on the number of interns an organisation must engage.

Besides, under the Apprentices Act, 1961, organisations must engage 2.5 per cent of their workforce as apprentices. It is not clear whether the interns engaged under the new scheme will be over and above the statutory requirement under the Apprentices Act.