Honoring the commitment made to the Union Budget 2024, the government has announced the PM Internship Scheme recently. While the scheme is aimed at giving youth ( between the ages of 21&24 ) the opportunity to get on-the-job training leading to employability, it is a great opportunity for the industry to get young professionals with basic education and qualifications matching job roles and requirements pre-trained before hiring. The scheme plans to support 1.25 lakh youth during 2024-25 and one crore youth in five years.
Under the scheme, a portal has been created by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to help industry and youth register. While youth can give preference for industry /sector and location and job roles, the industry can choose from among applicants matching their requirements. The duration of the internship would be 12 months. The scheme provides for payment of a stipend of Rs 66,000 to each intern. Out of which Rs 4,500 pm will be paid to the intern through direct bank transfer by the government and Rs 500 pm will be paid by the employer. In addition, Rs 6,000 will be paid to the intern by the government as incidental expenses at the time of joining. The industry can use the CSR budget to fund the scheme.
Indian businesses have been struggling to get the right candidates to meet their manpower requirements. There is a huge gap between industry needs and what Indian education institutes produce. Candidates, including engineers, diploma holders, and other professionals, get knowledge with no job-relevant skills in education institutes, leading to unemployment. Businesses are unable to use these qualified youth for job roles in the industry immediately, consequently leading to huge investments in time, effort, and cost by industry in training new hires before they become job-ready. The unavailability of job-ready candidates impacts industry productivity and contributes to lower business and national productivity compared to developed nations.
The PM Internship Scheme is a great opportunity for the industry to get future employees trained as interns, with a nominal contribution, and get pre-trained employees while hiring. While the objective of the government is to provide industry-specific training to youth to make them employable, it will benefit the industry greatly towards the cost of induction training and have a productive workforce on the first day of employment. While the government has initially identified the top 500 companies to be part of the scheme, their vendors and ancillaries can also get the benefit of the scheme. Many more such government initiatives, particularly those to motivate employers, would help bridge the gap between industry needs and youth competence for employability.