Fresh engineering graduates to get internship opportunities with local bodies, smart cities

The Centre on Thursday launched an urban learning internship programme - TULIP - for fresh engineering graduates who will get an opportunity to work for 4,400 urban local bodies and 100 smart cities in the country. Housing and Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' jointly launched an online portal of The Urban Learning Internship Programme, which will allow applicants internship for up to one year in areas like urban planning, financing, environmental engineering, sanitation and infrastructure.

Puri said urban services in the country are very comprehensive and this programme offers on-ground experience for fresh engineering graduates, asserting that "It is a dynamic model". He said both ULBs and smart cities can utilise the fresh ideas of the young people in improving services and making local bodies effective.

Pokhriyal said the government aims to provide internship to one crore youths in the next five years. Housing and Urban Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra said the ministry is working on producing "specialised cadre" that can be utilised in different sectors.

He said the online portal will provide a common platform to interested candidates, ULBs and smart cities, who will post details of their requirements. "This is a flexible programme. We have set a target of providing 25,000 fresh engineering graduates in the next one year.

"An applicant will also have liberty in choosing his or her subject like sanitation, urban planning, infrastructure and financing," Mishra said. He said the government is soon going to launch "Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0" where water management will be in focus.

According to the government, the new programme will lead to infusion of fresh ideas and energy with engagement of youth in co-creation of solutions for solving India's urban challenges. It also said that more importantly, it will further government's endeavour to boost community partnership and government-academia-industry-civil society linkages.

An MoU has also been signed between MoHUA and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) as per which technical support for the platform shall be anchored by AICTE and the programmatic non-technical support shall be anchored by MoHUA. A Steering Committee chaired by Secretary, HUA, including Chairman AICTE and other officials from MoHUA and AICTE, has also been constituted to review the progress of the programme on a periodical basis.

The plan to introduce the programme was announced by the finance minister in the budget speech. "Such a programme will help reap the benefits of India's demographic dividend as it is poised to have the largest working-age population in the world in the coming years. India has a substantial pool of technical graduates for whom exposure to real world project implementation and planning is essential for professional development.

"General education may not reflect the depth of productive knowledge present in society. Instead of approaching education as ‘doing by learning,’ our societies need to reimagine education as ‘learning by doing', " the HRD minister said..