Chennai, Bengaluru have most internship offers under PM scheme; graduates preferred

New Delhi: Businesses in Chennai and Bengaluru top cities in offering internships under the PM internship scheme, followed by the north Indian corporate hub of Gurugram and southern tech city Hyderabad, showed government data. 

Commercial capital Mumbai comes in at fifth place. Among states, Maharashtra offers the highest number of internships.

Businesses are offering 7,875 internships in Chennai, followed by 5,179 in Bengaluru urban region, 4,576 in Gurugram, 4,472 in Hyderabad and 4,288 in Mumbai.

The top ten districts preferred by businesses account for over 39,200 offers, representing nearly a third of the over-127,000 offers available as of Monday, data from the portal run by the ministry of corporate affairs showed.

Graduation tops list of qualifications

Graduation tops the list of qualifications needed for the internship, accounting for over 35,000 offers or 28% of all the offers on the table. 

Nearly a fourth of all offers require tenth standard as the qualification, while nearly an equal share requires Industrial Training Institute (ITI) qualification. About 17% of the offers are for diploma holders and about seven percent are for those who have passed twelfth standard. 

Jubilant Foodworks, Eicher Motor Ltd, Larsen & Toubro Ltd, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Bajaj Finance and Muthoot Finance are among the companies that have offered internships so far, Mint reported on 14 October.

The scheme, announced in the budget for FY25, offers interns a monthly assistance of Rs 4,500 from the government and  ₹500 from the company concerned, in addition to a one-time grant of  ₹6,000 from the government. 

Businesses can meet the cost of training interns and the  ₹500 per intern that they give every month from their corporate social responsibility funds.

The interns will also get insurance cover under the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana.

The top five states offering the highest number of internships are also the top state economies in the country, led by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

They are followed by Gujarat, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh although not as per their place in terms of gross state domestic product. 

The scheme offers candidates from far flung locations to take up internships in big cities, enabling them to be part of large business and professional environments. 

The scheme targets candidates who are economically disadvantaged and hence, is not open to those from families with collective income more than ₹8 lakh in 2023-24, or if any member of the family is a permanent government employee.

Holders of professional degrees from the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and National Law Universities are not eligible as are chartered accountants or those having MBBS degrees.