The Human Resources Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri today launched a joint initiative, TULIP. The Urban Learning Internship Programme, or TULIP, is aimed at providing internships for upto one year to fresh graduates in all urban local bodies (ULBs) and smart cities across the country. A TULIP portal, developed by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has also been launched today. The web-based platform will act as a repository of all interns and will facilitate placement and recruitment.
Giving details of the programme, Minister of State, Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep. S. Puri said: “It is expected that 25,000 fresh graduates will receive the opportunity of internship in the first year itself.” Mr Puri further added: “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 Portal
Students who have completed their undergraduate degrees including BTech, BArch, BPlan and BSc can apply within 18 months from the date of their completion of graduation.
A statement issued by the ministry said: “This launch is also an important stepping stone for fulfillment of MHRD and AICTE's goal of one crore successful internships by the year 2025. The digital platform powering TULIP enables discovery, engagement, aggregation, amplification and transparency.” It further added that the platform is customisable and provides immense flexibility to both ULBs and 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”, it added.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Pokhriyal said that this initiative is aligned with the vision of Prime Minister 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.
TULIP, the statement said, 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 and non-government sector professionals.
The statement added: “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.”
An agreement has also been signed between MoHUA and AICTE. The agreement 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.
The Minister in the launch informed that the TULIP programme will provide access to internship opportunities through 4,400 urban local bodies and smart cities across India.
The Minister further appreciated 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.
