Context: Recently, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs have jointly launched an online portal called The Urban Learning Internship Program (TULIP).
Key Points 

• The Centre has launched a scheme to provide internship opportunities with smart cities and urban local bodies for 25,000 fresh graduates, mostly from technical courses.
• It is a welcome move at a time of soaring unemployment and few prospects for new entrants into the labour force.
• However, there is no guarantee that these interns will get paid any stipend.
• The scheme is a five-year joint venture between MoHUA and the All India Council for Technical Education.
• City administrations can register available opportunities on the portal, ranging from positions in urban planning or water supply and waste management to slum improvement and digital governance.
• Eligibility and Duration: Applicants must be Indian citizens who have completed their final year of college within the last 18 months and have a degree of B. Tech, B planning, B. Arch, BA, BSc, BCom, LLB. Internship durations can range from eight weeks to one year.
• The programme does not have any budget of its own, but the 100 smart cities and 4,400 urban local bodies can use the administrative expenses allocated by the Centre to pay stipends or perks, if they wish to. They are also free to develop their own selection procedures.
• The internship opportunities will be provided for ‘Smart City’ projects which range from positions in urban planning, water supply, waste management, slum improvement and digital governance among others.
• Benefit: It would help enhance the value-to-market of India’s graduates and help create a potential talent pool in diverse fields.

Need for and Significance of the program

• 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.’
• Thus TULIP would help fulfil 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.

About All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)

• It  is the statutory body and a national-level council for technical education, under the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.
• Established in November 1945, first as an advisory body and later on in 1987 given statutory status by an Act of Parliament.
• It is responsible for proper planning and coordinated development of the technical education and management education system in India. 
• The AICTE accredits postgraduate and graduate programs under specific categories at Indian institutions as per its charter.
• The council has no authority which empowers it to issue or enforce any sanctions on colleges affiliated with the universities as its role is to provide guidance and recommendations.