PM Internship Scheme—another shaky start to another shaky skilling programme

Let’s face it: opportunities are scarce for most graduates in India, particularly those who don’t have financial support to fall back on. A job at a major enterprise is the dream—and a path to better economic and social standing. Yet there’s a widening mismatch between what most graduates can offer and the skills required by corporations. The Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme (PMIS) was meant to close this chasm. The goal was to help 10 million people find internships over five years and place them in 500 of India’s top companies. These interns would then acquire new skills and learn the ways of corporate life. So far, the internship hasn’t lived up to expectations. In phase 1 of PMIS, 600,000 applications were received for 127,000 posts. In all, 82,000 offers were made, with only 8,700 interns becoming full-time hires at the companies they spent time at. PMIS is in its second phase now, and the current figures don’t look that different.The main problem is money—PMIS’s participants don’t get paid enough. Its stated goal of helping graduates who need the most assistance doesn’t align with how the programme’s incentives are defined.The Ken staff writer Debanjali Biswas explains in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as narrated by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter