Why PM's Internship Scheme is a win-win for talent-pressured Indian industry

India’s vast school, college, technical education and skill development ecosystem is not delivering the quantity or quality of talent that industry requires. This, according to Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, secretary, Union ministry of corporate affairs, is why the Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme (PMIS) was conceived.

Registrations for the third pilot round of PMIS have started. While overhauling the education system will take time, the onus through PMIS has been placed on industry to skill up talent the way it needs.

“The idea was to give companies complete flexibility in how they want to skill and train talent, with the government taking on the majority of the financial burden of the internship allowance,” Mukherjee said during the session ‘PM Internship Scheme: Strengthening India’s Talent Pipeline’ at the CII Annual Business Summit 2026 in New Delhi.

Companies, Mukherjee added, must think about the job roles they need people for and how they will impart those skills. She delivered a compelling pitch on the potential of PMIS, encouraging industry to leverage it.

Mukerjee said that while companies have an economic objective to create their own talent pipeline, it is also part of their social responsibility to give India’s youth the “opportunity to learn from the best”.

PMIS, in its earlier pilots, was opened to the top 500 companies. “This is the only scheme where the entire implementation is driven by industry. The rationale is to give flexibility to industry to shape the youth the way it wants,” said Mukherjee. “It is a great opportunity to engage with the future of the country and shape the way they think.”

Mukherjee said there are often laments from employers about how young people do not want to work, do not have the right work ethic or have unrealistic expectations. But she questioned what the industry has done to understand what young people are expecting, and whether these expectations are wrong or simply misunderstood.

“The country cannot progress if there is a complete disconnect between what the youth is thinking and what we are expecting them to think. We have to reach a place where they understand where we are coming from, and we understand their expectations and aspirations. Otherwise, it could lead to civil unrest in the future,” she said.

Mukherjee acknowledged that the results of initial PMIS pilots were not enough, but added that “interns who made the difficult choice of staying on for one year have made a lot of difference”.

PMIS aims to provide 10 million internships to the youth over five years. Currently, its third pilot is underway. Highlighting the changes made to the scheme, Balamurugan D., joint secretary, ministry of corporate affairs, said: “No other scheme in the country, or maybe even in the world, gives this kind of flexibility.” He said it is one of the only schemes globally that gives industry flexibility over the roles it wants to offer, the sector, internship duration, location, qualifications required, and the kind of training to be provided.

Earlier the scheme was primarily for those in the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) category. Balamurugan highlighted that now, final-year graduates, diploma students and postgraduates were also eligible for PMIS since the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines mandate internships.

Earlier, the PMIS digital portal was the base for end-to-end implementation wherein companies had to post opportunities on the dashboard, and candidates had to register on the portal and apply for internships based on their preferences and eligibility. Now, while PMIS remains, companies can also engage interns through campus recruitment.

A campus mode selection process, said Balamurugan, has also been introduced, allowing companies to decide dates and campuses where they can mobilise candidates, select eligible applicants, issue offers and provide joining details.

In 2024, 353 companies out of the 500 companies invited participated in pilots one and two. The scheme has now been opened to the top 2,000 companies as well as firms with a net worth of Rs 500 crore, taking the total eligible pool to 3,000 companies.

The stipend for interns has also increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 9,000. Around 90 per cent of this is funded by the government, including a one-time assistance of Rs 6,000 and insurance cover.

However, what has emerged as one of the biggest bottlenecks in the scheme is the high drop-off rate despite strong application numbers. D.B. Sundara Ramam, vice-president, corporate services, Tata Steel, highlighted that while the company had offered 5,200 opportunities in the first two pilots, only 52 candidates remain. He highlighted the need to create greater awareness about the opportunities available through PMIS.

Ujjwal Prakash, vice-president, workforce management, Jubilant FoodWorks, said the company, with 2,500 restaurants spread across 500 cities, is using PMIS to build a decentralised talent pipeline. He informed that interns have been given opportunities to become shift managers after one year with the company.

To run the programme at scale, he said, the company made job descriptions very specific to attract the right applicants. It also created a dedicated learning and development function to manage the programme. “With operations spread across so many locations, you need more check-ins, better query management and constant engagement at scale to reduce dropouts,” Prakash said.

Anil Bahuguna, chief of skill development at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), noted how the company has deployed retired ONGC officers as mentors for interns to teach them the ropes of the business. To ensure employability, ONGC has also aligned its contractors to absorb eligible interns after training for operations and maintenance work.

Don Lewis, head of skill development and education, Mahindra Group, said the programme’s success within the company has been driven by leadership support across all levels. “We are democratising an experience that was earlier available only to Ivy League schools and making it available to millions of youth across the country,” said Lewis.

K.M. Suceendran, head, academic alliance group, Tata Consultancy Services, emphasised that internship and skilling initiatives are long-term talent creation investments for industry. He shared that nearly 80 per cent of interns were absorbed into the organisation.

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