The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) rolled out the second round of the PM Internship Scheme (PMIS) on Thursday, inviting fresh applications from candidates for more than 100,000 internship opportunities in over 300 companies across more than 730 districts in the country. These companies are engaged in sectors such as oil, gas and energy, banking and financial services, travel and hospitality, automotive, and FMCG.
The ministry said that for the second round of the pilot phase, more than 70 IEC (information, education and communication) events are being conducted across India. Also, national-level digital campaigns are currently being run through multiple platforms as well as influencers based on the concentration of opportunities. This time, each applicant can apply for up to three internship opportunities.
Till now, the scheme has provided internship opportunities to 28,141 candidates, minister of state for corporate affairs Harsh Malhotra recently told the Lok Sabha. The minister said that in the first round of the pilot project, which started in October last year, 621,000 applications were received from candidates for over 127,000 internship opportunities offered by the participating companies across the country.
However, after the scheme was inaugurated in December, the partner companies made 82,077 internship offers to 60,866 candidates, of whom over 28,000 candidates accepted the offers, the minister had said.
In the first round of the pilot phase, companies such as IOCL, ONGC, Vedanta, Maruti Suzuki, Titan, and NTPC offered internships across 656 districts.
Announced in the Budget 2024-25, PMIS has a target to provide internships to 10 million people in top 500 companies (based on corporate social responsibility spends) over five years with 125,000 opportunities targeted to being given in the first year of the scheme.
Under PMIS, each intern will be supported with a monthly financial assistance of Rs 5,000, in addition to a one-time financial assistance of Rs 6,000. The internship will be a combination of relevant training and professional experience (of at least six months) to ensure that candidates learn and can also apply their skills in real-world settings.
Recently, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that the intent of the scheme was not to provide job but to provide an exposure, and “through the internship, and kind of awareness of what is there in the market for which they have to be trained.” States such as Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have generated the most opportunities in the first round of the scheme.