VTU to act on private companies demanding money from students instead of providing paid-internships

There have been allegations that many private companies registered on the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) portal are demanding money from students for internships, instead of providing paid internships. Students have complained that some companies are luring them by promising to provide internship certificates without having to work if they pay.

Following these complaints, VTU has decided to blacklist companies that ask students for money for internships. In addition, it has decided to appoint squads to inspect the companies offering internships.

Engineering students are required to do a minimum of six months of internship in the 7th or 8th semesters to acquire the necessary skills in the stream they are studying. VTU has allocated nine credits for an internship. In the past, there were complaints about submission of fake certificates due to lack of proper monitoring of the companies and students doing internships.

Following this, VTU implemented a paid internship policy. As per this, the companies should pay a monthly stipend. VTU, which has launched a separate online portal for this purpose, has instructed the companies offering internships to register themselves compulsorily. More than 2,500 companies that have agreed to provide paid internships to students of VTU-affiliated colleges have registered.

However, there have been allegations that some private companies, instead of providing paid internships to students, are demanding money from the students.

“I am an 8th-semester student of the Mechanical Engineering branch and applied online for an internship with a company registered on the VTU portal. But, instead of a paid internship, I was asked to pay the money instead. It is not right to allow companies that charge money from students to register on VTU portal,” alleged a student of a private engineering college.

“Students have complained that some companies are promising to give certificates without working if they pay. Some fake companies are also registering on the VTU portal. We have requested VTU to look into this matter and take action,” said the principal of a government engineering college.

Speaking to The Hindu, Vidyashankar, Vice-Chancellor of VTU, said that some irregularities had come to their notice.

“We will look into this matter and blacklist the guilty companies. Some students may also be involved in such acts. In this context, VTU will appoint squads to make surprise visits to the companies and take action to verify whether students are doing internships or not,” he said.

In addition, maintenance of internship diary will be made mandatory for students, he added.

Every year, about 85,000 students qualify for internships in VTU-affiliated engineering colleges. However, companies are not coming forward to provide internships to such a large number of students. Due to this, engineering students are not getting the necessary skills.

Vidyashankar, Vice-Chancellor of VTU, said, “For example, every year Infosys conducts an all-India level selection to provide internships to 1,000 students. Out of this, not even 50 of our students are selected. Boeing provides paid-internships to only 28 of our students. Therefore, a meeting of large private companies will be called and a request will be made to provide more internships to VTU students. And the government will be requested to bring some rules to make it mandatory for every government and private company in the State to provide internships to at least 500 VTU students every year.”