BENGALURU: Around 46% of students in colleges affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), who have secured internships — mandatory under their engineering curriculum — have had to pay the host companies for work experience.Stakeholders have also alleged that VTU takes a share of the fees charged by companies offering paid internships. According to norms, VTU retains 25% of the internship fee paid by a student, while the remaining 75% is transferred to the company concerned within 20 working days of student enrolment.The university, however, has denied profiting from this arrangement, claiming that its share is meant to cover the cost of maintaining the internship portal.VTU, the umbrella university for engineering colleges across the state, introduced a four-month mandatory internship programme in the seventh semester.Free internships not easy to get: StudentsVTU launched an online portal as a single platform to coordinate internship opportunities. Students were told to select internships exclusively through this portal.The portal lists 3 categories of internships — free, paid and stipend-based. Under paid internships, students pay companies fees ranging from Rs 500 to over Rs 1.2 lakh. In stipendbased internships, companies pay students for their work, while under free internships, neither party is financially obligated.According to VTU data, 81,000 students are required to undergo internships. Of these, 65,710 have already secured internship offers. Among them, 28,162 have landed free internships, 30,345 opted for paid internships, while 7,203 students secured stipend-based positions.“How can we, as a university, ensure around 80,000 students get internships for free? It is up to the companies and the govt to ensure internships are made accessible for all, as making students industry-ready is a collective effort,” said Vidyashankar S, vice-chancellor of VTU.Students, however, say free internships are increasingly difficult to secure. “On the portal, some internships are marked as free, but upon contacting, we’re told the free internship quota is full, leaving us with no choice but to go for paid internships,” a student said.Responding to criticism over the university’s share of internship fees, Vidyashankar said: “The fee that is taken by the university is for maintaining the [internship] portal. It is a third party that is maintaining it. We plan to reduce that share to 10% from the current 25%, from the next academic year. The university does not intend to make any money from this.”
