Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal `Nishank’ and MoS (I/C), Housing & Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep. S. Puri  jointly launched a first of its kind initiative   `The Urban Learning Internship Program (TULIP)’ - A program for providing internship opportunities to fresh graduates in all Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Smart Cities across the country, here today. They also launched the portal for this programme on the occasion. Secretary, HRD, Shri Amit Khare; Secretary, MoHUA Shri Durga Shanker Mishra; Chairman, AICTE, Shri Anil Sahasrabuddhe and senior officers of both Ministries and AICTE.

https://twitter.com/DrRPNishank/status/1268433318833319936

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Pokhriyal said that this initiative is aligned with the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to harness the potential of the youth in nation-building. The Minister said that the TULIP program will be instrumental in laying the foundation of New India as it will provide practical experience to our students and will help infuse fresh ideas and innovative thinking into the working of Urban Local Bodies and smart cities.

While appreciating the youth, Shri Pokhriyal said there is no shortage of brilliance in our country as the CEOs/ heads of the top companies of the world like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, etc are of Indian origin. The Minister also highlighted that the potential of students is also reflected in programmes like Smart India Hackathon in which they bring out solutions to the problems faced by Industry/, PSUs/ Government/ non-government organizations. Shri Pokhriyal informed that the TULIP programme will provide access to internship opportunities through 4400 Urban local bodies and smart cities pan India.  The Minister lauded the efforts of the officials of AICTE, Ministry of HRD and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for the initiative and hoped that TULIP platforms will give an opportunity to youth to generate news ideas to reform Urban local bodies by modern techniques and innovative methods. Similar programmes like these in convergence with various ministries can help to generate internship opportunities for one crore students in the coming future, the HRD Minister added.

Giving details of the programme, MoS (I/C), Housing & Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep. S. Puri said that it is expected that 25000 fresh graduates will receive opportunity of internship in the first year itself. This will not only help the interns get hands on experience in the vast activities of urban local bodies but will also help to create a resource upon which the industry can draw easily for hiring.

TULIP has been conceived pursuant to the Budget 2020-21 announcement by the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman under the theme ‘Aspirational India’. The announcement read as follows: “The Government proposes to start a program whereby the urban local bodies across the country would provide internship opportunities to fresh engineers for a period up to one year.” Such a program 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.’

TULIP would help enhance the value-to-market of India’s graduates and help create a potential talent pool in diverse fields like urban planning, transport engineering, environment, municipal finance etc. thus not only catalyzing creation of prospective city managers but also talented private/ non-government sector professionals. TULIP would benefit ULBs and smart cities immensely. It will lead to infusion of fresh ideas and energy with engagement of youth in co-creation of solutions for solving India’s urban challenges. More importantly, it will further Government’s endeavors to boost community partnership and government- academia-industry-civil society linkages. Thus TULIP- “The Urban Learning Internship Program” would help fulfill twin goals of providing interns with hands-on learning experience as well as infusing fresh energy and ideas in the functioning of India’s ULBs and Smart Cities.

This launch is also an important stepping stone for fulfillment of MHRD and AICTE’s goal of 1 crore successful internships by the year 2025. The digital platform powering TULIP enables discovery, engagement, aggregation, amplification and transparency. The platform is customizable and provides immense flexibility to both ULBs/ Smart Cities and interns to enable convenient access. Security features have been thoroughly tested and the platform has been made scalable, federated and transparent by design.

An MoU has also been signed between MoHUA and AICTE. The MoU, inter alia, lays down roles and responsibilities of AICTE and MoHUA over a period of 5 years. Technical support for the platform shall be anchored by AICTE and the programmatic non-technical support shall be anchored by MoHUA. A Steering Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary, HUA including Chairman AICTE and other officials from MoHUA and AICTE has also been constituted to review the progress of the program on a periodical basis.

For ease of implementation, Guidelines have also been formulated which spell out the objective, eligibility conditions, duration of internship, terms of engagement, logistics and other operational features of the programs etc. These Guidelines also provide illustrative roles for interns which can be further refined at the level of ULBs and smart cities at their discretion. A Handbook for ULBs/ Smart Cities and interns has also been prepared for ease of implementation. MoHUA has also agreed to allow use of administrative expenses under its Missions/ programs for the payment of stipends/ perks under the program.

MoHUA would reach out to State Governments to help boost internships in their cities. It will undertake capacity building initiatives in partnerships with State Governments to enable participation of ULBs and smart cities under TULIP. As States & UTs have a deeper understanding of the regional challenges and opportunities at the urban level, they can effectively implement TULIP by matching their needs with skills developed through such internships.

State Governments/Union Territories are also urged to explore scaling up TULIP to parastatal agencies/ State Financial intermediaries and other organizations/ agencies related to urban development in their respective jurisdictions. Since the technology platform for TULIP is open, scalable and federated, such additions would be very easily possible.

Any graduate who have completed B. Tech, B. Arch, B. Plan, BSc etc.  can apply within 18 months from date of its graduation at:

 https://internship.aicte-india.org/module_ulb/Dashboard/TulipMain/index.php

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NB/AKJ/AK