Only about 33% of the applicants have accepted the internships they were offered under the Prime Minister Internship Scheme since it was launched in October, the Union government told Parliament on Monday.

The scheme was announced as part of the Union Budget 2024-’25 to provide internship opportunities to one crore youth in 500 top companies over five years.

The Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs launched the pilot project of the scheme on October 3.

Out of the 1.53 lakh internship offers made since then, 50,726 have been accepted, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. Of the total, 8,700 candidates who were made offers in the first round of the pilot have joined their internships.

The process of accepting offers made in the second round after January 9 is in progress, added Sitharaman.

In the first round of the pilot, more than 1.27 lakh internship opportunities were posted and over 6.21 lakh applications were received from 1.81 lakh students.

The finance minister said that companies had offered more than 82,000 internships to more than 60,000 candidates, out of which 28,141 candidates accepted.

As part of the second round, more than 1.18 lakh internship opportunities had been posted as of July 17.

Sitharaman said that the government had received more than 4.55 lakh applications from 2.14 lakh candidates. More than 71,000 internship offers were made and 22,584 were accepted.

In total, over 2.45 lakh internship opportunities have been posted, with 10.76 lakh applications received from nearly 3.95 lakh applicants.