PM Modi Internship Scheme crosses target; Maruti, ONGC top charts

Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme, which aims to train youths aged 21 to 24 years in new-age business activities, has taken off to a flying start having crossed the target of 1.25 lakh offers it sought to reach as part of the ongoing pilot to enrol youth and link them with offers.

By Friday night, the scheme portal had already clocked the pilot target of 1.25 lakh internship offers, with 250 companies participating. The pilot has been launched to test scheme efficacy ahead of final rollout of next year.

Official sources told The Tribune that maximum offers had come from the following five sectors — oil, gas and energy; automotive; travel and hospitality; banking and financial services; metals and mining.

Data sourced by TNS shows Maruti with 10,960 offers leading the internship offer charts in the automotive sector, followed by Eicher Motors at 4,260, Hero Motocorp at 1,744, Mahindra and Mahindra at 1,000 and Tata Motors at 838.

In the oil and natural gas sector, public sector undertaking ONGC is the lead offer maker with 6,000 offers, followed by Power Grid with 4,004, NTPC at 3,570, Indian Oil Corporation at 2,991 and REC Limited at 1,700. In the banking and financial service segment, Muthoot Finance leads the charts with 1,960 offers, followed by IndusInd Bank at 1,000; Bajaj Finance at 880, Kotak Mahindra Bank at 710 and National Stock Exchange of India at 710.

The scheme’s portal is currently open for candidates to apply. Once the enrolment is done and offers matched with skills of the enrolled youth using Artificial Intelligence tools, the scheme will be launched from December 2 when monthly assistance of Rs 5,000 will be paid to the interns for 12 months of the training.

Out of this, every month the company will release Rs 500 to each intern from its CSR funds. Once the company makes that payment, the government will pay Rs 4,500 through direct benefit transfer to the intern’s Aadhar seeded bank account. A one-time grant of Rs 6,000 will also be disbursed to each intern by the government through DBT when the intern joins training starting December 2.

The eligibility is — candidates who have passed high school, higher secondary, has a certificate from ITI, diploma from a polytechnic or is a graduate with BA, BSc, BCA, BBA, B Pharma, etc.