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The Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme (PMIS) seeks to bridge the gap between the skills of young people entering the workforce and what industry expects from them, Union Minister of Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday. Interacting with interns under the scheme at an event, Sitharaman said industry had told the government that it struggled to find candidates with the right skills, while graduates and Industrial Training Institute (ITI) students said they were unable to find jobs despite applying to several companies.
The scheme was designed to address this wide gap between training and employers’ expectations by giving young people hands-on workplace experience and exposure to industry, she said. This included skills often not covered by formal education or vocational training, such as teamwork, workplace etiquette and behavioural skills, she added.
“Unless this gap is filled, kids will not get jobs and industries will say that there are jobs but not the right people to do them. When students complete school, college or ITI training, the skills that industry expects in them are lacking. To provide them with these skills PMIS was introduced so that students can join a company and understand how a workplace is, how it functions and what skills are required there,” Sitharaman said.
Some interns had also received employment opportunities from the companies where they completed their internships, including at Infosys and Mahindra, Sitharaman said.
In the Budget for FY2026-27, the internship scheme saw an allocation of ₹4,800 crore, much lower than the FY2025-26 allocation of over ₹10,000 crore. However, as of December 31, 2025, only ₹64.91 crore of the FY26 allocation was utilised. As of January 27, while 3,417 interns in the first round had completed the course, almost twice that number, or 7,094 candidates, left without completing the course, a Parliament response stated.
The government subsequently revised the PMIS guidelines in March 2026, ahead of the third round. The changes included allowing six- or nine-month internships instead of the earlier 12-month duration and raising the monthly assistance from ₹5,000 to ₹9,000. The eligibility criteria were also widened, including by raising the upper age limit from 24 to 25 years and allowing final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students to participate.
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