Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman exhorted India Inc on Monday to step up their participation in the PM Internship Scheme (PMIS), hailing it as “a national cause”.
The finance minister said that for a “country of our size”, and with the objective that top 500 companies participate in the programme, there’s still some way to go.
“I would appeal to industry to make sure that the rest of them — beyond 300 companies who have come forward — should also participate. This is a national cause. Nobody is expecting you to cut profit or face loss. The government is chipping in money. We need to give that confidence to our youth. We need our youth to understand what it takes to get into such top 500 companies if they ready themselves,” Sitharaman said.
At the launch of a dedicated PMIS mobile application, the finance minister said that the industry should participate in the larger interest of the country’s youth. “You need to open that little window so that people have a peek at what you’re doing. That’s how the youth will be tempted to build themselves. There was no compulsion on the industry, and no interference in their management process but to make the industry realise that they should take a step forward to give that opportunity to people so that they are better ready for the markets,” she said.
The finance minister also said that the scheme has given special emphasis on placing interns in their respective districts. “As much as possible, through the system itself, it was tried to place every intern applicant within their district, if not, then the neighbouring district. No one was expected to go out too far unless they chose to,” Sitharaman said.
Inaugurated in December 2024, the first round of PMIS has seen 28,141 candidates accepting the internship offers. The government has targeted to provide internships to 125,000 people in the pilot phase of the scheme which ends in March 2025. Overall, the scheme has a target to provide 10 million internships over a five-year period. In the second round of the pilot phase, which began in January, the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has been seeking fresh applications from candidates for more than 100,000 internship opportunities in about 325 companies covering 735 districts.
The finance minister said that the mobile app will make it even more accessible for the youth to participate in the scheme. “They will have better information in their hands. I had appealed to all the members of Parliament that in their respective constituencies they should encourage the youth to come and join in the internship programme,” she said.
Under the scheme, the MCA is giving one-time grant of `6,000 to each intern. Additionally, there is a monthly assistance of `5,000 paid to the interns for the entire duration of the internship (12 months). Based on an intern’s attendance and company-specific policies related to good conduct, the companies pay `500 to each intern (monthly) from their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds. Once the companies make payments, the government releases its share of `4,500 through direct benefit transfer.