Land Ports Authority Of India (LPAI) Internship Scheme(LPAI INTERNSHIP 2025)

There is no fixed annual calendar, and the myScheme record carries no opening or closing date. LPAI announces each window on its internship page, and the pattern shifted from one annual invitation in 2025 to three shorter batches in 2026.

The September-October 2026 window was advertised as open until 23.08.2026 and has since closed; the page's own advice is to visit the website regularly for the next batch, per the LPAI internship page.

The floor is academic: a minimum of 60% marks in the most recent degree or certificate examination, for Indian students from recognised universities in India or abroad, per the Internship Guidelines. The qualifying categories run from completed graduates and polytechnic diploma holders through senior-year engineering and integrated-degree students to MBA, M.Tech and MCA candidates, and IIT, NIT and law students qualify once their second year is done, so most disciplines have a route in, but never in the first year of a course.

Two features separate this from a typical internship advert. Applications must arrive sponsored by the candidate's own institution, so the college or university signs before LPAI reads a word. And preference is written into the guidelines themselves: candidates with prior exposure to their intended area, students from the Northeast region, and wards of stakeholders deployed with LPAI stand ahead of an otherwise equal field. Qualifications can be relaxed in deserving cases, but only through internal recommendation and approval at the top of the Authority. BBIN applicants follow the same procedure as Indian students.

Neither the myScheme record nor the guidelines publishes a formal exclusion list; in practice the two hard stops are marks below the 60% threshold and an application that arrives without institutional sponsorship.

There is nothing to renew: each selection covers one internship, with a minimum duration of eight weeks, extendable up to three months where the Authority's requirements and the intern's availability line up, per the Internship Guidelines. Anything beyond three months is exceptional and needs prior approval at headquarters. A fresh batch means a fresh application.

The money question first, because it is answered in one line of the source. Clause 11 of the Internship Guidelines states that no stipend is paid for the internship period; expenses incurred in the efficient conduct of the internship can be reimbursed, but only with prior approval of the competent authority. Budget accordingly, including your own laptop or tablet, which the code of conduct requires interns to bring.

What the scheme does pay out is position and proof. Interns are placed with the LPAI research team or under the head of a division, and the closing report is endorsed at the level of Member (Finance) or Director (Operations) before headquarters issues the Certificate of Internship. Past intern reports stay with the Authority as reference material for future research, so the work has a shelf life beyond the certificate. For a student writing a thesis on trade facilitation or border infrastructure, supervised access to a functioning ICP is the actual award.

Beyond the identity, address, marksheet, institution-letter and NOC set the record lists, the application itself is a prescribed form, and its fields tell you what LPAI actually reads: educational qualifications with percentage of marks, the internship period and place you want (headquarters or a regional office), your area of expertise, projects undertaken, two references with contact details, and a statement of purpose capped at 75 words, per the form annexed to the Internship Guidelines. Those 75 words are the whole pitch, so write them before you collect anything else. On joining, a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement (also annexed to the guidelines) is mandatory.

The canonical route is by email. The 2025-26 invitation asked qualified applicants to send the application form, CV, preferred areas of research interest and two references to the Director (Operations) at dir.opr-lpai@gov.in, with a copy to advisor@lpai.info, all sponsored by the institution. The guidelines also allow submission through the Authority's website or through myScheme, and regional offices and headquarters can recruit interns directly through enquiries from academic institutions.

The route now varies by batch, so check the announcement before you draft anything. In 2026 LPAI ran three windows, and the LPAI internship page lists a different door for each: the 2026 (Mar-Apr) and 2026 (May-June) batches went through the AICTE internship portal, while the 2026 (September-October) batch used a Google Form linked from the page itself.

On tracking: this scheme has no National Scholarship Portal presence and no DBT payout, so there is no status dashboard to refresh and nothing to check on scholarships.gov.in. Selection is announced as a published list on the internship page; the Summer 2025 list names 14 selects along with each intern's theme and proposed dissertation topic, per the List of Selects, Internship 2025. Watching that page is the tracking mechanism.

Applications clear an eligibility screen first, and the shortlist then goes to a selection committee constituted with the approval of the Member (Finance), per the Internship Guidelines. The committee may call a personal or telephonic interview if it needs one, and candidates attending in person bear their own travel: no TA/DA is reimbursed. Meeting the minimum bar does not by itself produce an offer; the preference rules favour demonstrated exposure to the proposed research area, a strong academic record, and the Northeast and stakeholder-ward categories named in the guidelines. The 2025 selects' proposed topics ran from AI-based congestion forecasting to gender-inclusive infrastructure at land ports, which is a fair signal of the specificity the committee rewards.

The conditions read like a government posting because that is what the placement is. Interns sign the NDA at joining, follow the rules applicable to Authority employees, and may not disclose anything about LPAI's work or policies. Presenting internship work at a seminar or conference needs the Authority's prior permission, any published paper must state that the views are personal, and interaction with the media, print or electronic, is prohibited outright, per the Internship Guidelines.

The exit terms cut both ways. The Authority can end the engagement at any time without stating reasons. An intern who wants to leave gives two weeks' notice, stretching up to one month for stays running past two months, and returns every document, badge and asset issued. The internship does not constitute employment and creates no claim to a future post. The certificate is conditional too: no accepted report, no certificate.

Applications and queries for the scheme go to the Director (Operations), LPAI at dir.opr-lpai@gov.in. The Authority sits at 1st Floor, Lok Nayak Bhawan, Khan Market, New Delhi-110003, under the Department of Border Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, per the LPAI internship page. A candidate set on a particular integrated check post rather than headquarters can route an application through the Authority's Admin Division instead.