NEW DELHI, Dec 2: While the PM Internship Scheme’s pilot project has exceeded its target of providing 1.25 lakh internship opportunities in a year, it has found few takers among India’s youth, data presented to Parliament shows.
Over two phases, 1.65 lakh internship offers were made by companies to applicants, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Harsh Malhotra informed the Lok Sabha in a reply to a question on Tuesday. Of these offers, only 20% were accepted. Candidates cited locations, roles, and duration as reasons for declining offers. Of those who accepted offers, one-fifth of participants left their internships before completing them.
The Prime Minister Internship Scheme (PMIS) was announced in the Union Budget 2024 with the aim of providing internship opportunities to one crore youth in India’s top 500 companies in five years. In October 2024, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs launched a pilot project for the scheme, targeting 1.25 lakh internship opportunities in a year.
Under the first round of the pilot project, companies posted more than 1.27 lakh internship opportunities on the scheme portal, for which only 6.21 lakh applications were received. The companies made 82,000 internship offers, of which 8,700 or 10.6% of the offers were accepted.
The Minister’s reply noted that, as of November 26, this year, 4,565 candidates from the first round had left their internships without completing them. That is, more than half the candidates that started their internships in the first round left before finishing their term.
In the second round of the pilot scheme from January 2025 onwards, companies posted over 1.18 lakh internship opportunities for which they received over 4.55 lakh applications. As of November 26, 2025, companies have made over 83,000 offers, of which 24,600 offers or 30% were accepted.
So far, 2,053 candidates — or 8.3% of the ones who accepted internships in the second round — have left without completing their internships, the government said.
Taken together, this means that over the two rounds, 1.65 lakh internship offers were made, of which 33,300 (20.2%) offers were accepted. Of those that were accepted, 6,618 (19.9%) candidates quit their internships prematurely.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs conducted evaluation and feedback surveys, made calls to applicants, and received feedback from companies in order to determine the broad reasons for low acceptance levels.
Location was an important consideration, with candidates indicating that their ideal travel distance was between 5 km and 10 km, the Ministry told the Lok Sabha. It also pointed out that the internship period of 12 months was longer than in normal skilling programs, and found that some candidates were not interested in the roles offered.
The government had initially budgeted ₹840 crore for the pilot project, which was revised down to ₹380 crore in the financial year 2024-25. Of this, the pilot project has so far utilised only ₹73.72 crore, the reply said.
(Manas Dasgupta)