Mass Communication Internship Programme(MCIP)

Overview

About MCIP

The Ministry of Jal Shakti is not one office, and this internship belongs to only one part of it. It runs inside the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, out of the IEC Section at Shram Shakti Bhawan in New Delhi, and it takes a maximum of three people per cycle. It also pays an honorarium rather than a scholarship, which changes what you are agreeing to when you accept a place.

This is a working placement, not a grant. A selected candidate is posted with a Deputy Secretary, Director, Joint Secretary or the office of the Secretary (WR, RD & GR) and works alongside the department's IEC Section on its media and social media output, which in practice means social media content and planning, press releases on departmental events, publicity for the National Water Awards, and draft speeches for senior officials (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26). Nothing is credited towards tuition and no fee is waived; the money arrives as a monthly honorarium into the intern's own bank account.

The Press Information Bureau put the shape of it plainly when the department announced the programme: a six to nine month engagement, an honorarium of Rs 15,000 per month, and a certificate of internship on successful completion (PIB, Ministry of Jal Shakti announces Mass Communication Internship Programme, Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26). Two facts decide whether it is worth applying for at all. It is full time and physical, in the main secretariat in Delhi, and the intake is three.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

The guidelines fix no calendar. They say only that the internship will be available twice in the year based on the requirement of the department, so a cycle opens when the IEC Section needs interns rather than on a published schedule (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26). Each round is named for the month it belongs to, and those months have moved: a May round, then a December round, then an October one.

The May round, which the department's own notice headed the Second Mass Communication Internship Programme, took applications until 29 June 2024, the date PIB carried when it announced the opening and the same date the covering notice set, along with a start tentatively scheduled about a month after that (PIB, Ministry of Jal Shakti announces Mass Communication Internship Programme, Notice and guidelines, Second Mass Communication Internship Programme). The next round ran as the second phase of the 2024-25 guidelines and closed on 31 January 2025, the last date printed on its application screen (Internship application portal, December 2024 cycle).

Akashvani News reported the launch of the October 2025 round on the day the ministry announced it, putting the last date to apply at the 24th of the following month, and the application screen has carried 24/11/2025 against that programme ever since (Akashvani News, Jal Shakti Ministry Launches Mass Communication Internship Programme, Internship application portal).

Read that screen carefully rather than optimistically. It still displays the October 2025 programme and its expired last date, which is a leftover rather than an open window, and the department's internship page now carries only the 2025-26 guidelines and that cycle's shortlist (Internship Program in Mass Communication). No round is open at the time of writing.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The bar is set on your graduation marks, not on your postgraduate result. The guidelines take bonafide students of any recognised university or institution in India who are pursuing postgraduate courses or are research scholars in mass communication, journalism, public relations or related fields, or MBA (Marketing), and equally students who have already completed a degree or diploma in those courses, provided they scored not less than 55% or equivalent in graduation (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26). A first class postgraduate result does not repair a graduation percentage below that line.

The announcements have blurred this, which is worth knowing before you take a listing at its word. Akashvani News described the programme as open to students pursuing graduation or post graduation, or research scholars (Akashvani News, Jal Shakti Ministry Launches Mass Communication Internship Programme); the eligibility clause in the guidelines runs through a graduation that is already finished and already scored. Since the department scores applicants on that graduation percentage at selection, plan around the eligibility clause and not around the launch coverage.

The second half of the eligibility clause is a skills list rather than a qualification: writing, communication, time management, organisation, traditional and digital marketing, customer service, relationship building, strategic and analytical thinking, and creativity. It reads as soft, and it is not, because the write-up you attach and the interview are where the department tests it.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

No excluded categories are published, but four lines elsewhere in the guidelines shut the door in practice. No intern is allowed to repeat the internship. Only bonafide students of a recognised Indian university or institution qualify, which keeps out applicants enrolled abroad. Anyone under the graduation percentage is out before the interview stage. And the department may terminate an intern's engagement at any point as it deems fit, without giving any reason, with its decision final (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26).

Continuation

Renewal conditions

There is no renewal, and the extension works the other way round from what most applicants assume. The period of internship is six months from the date of joining, and it may be extended up to a maximum of three months for deserving candidates and based on the department's requirements. Since no intern may repeat the programme, that single extension is the only continuation on offer.

Shorter durations circulate in scheme directories. The guidelines PDF on the department's own site is the document an intern signs up to, and both the edition issued with the 2024 notice and the 2025-26 edition set the same six month period with the same three month extension.

What you get

Award & benefits

The honorarium is Rs 15,000 per month, paid online, and the department asks each intern for a copy of the PAN card and a bank mandate form to make the transfer (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26). The certificate is not automatic: satisfactory completion requires 90% attendance and a countersigned report, and an intern who does not complete the requisite six months will not be issued any certificate at all. Leaving in month four therefore ends with the honorarium already drawn and nothing on paper.

No travel allowance, dearness allowance or hostel provision is published anywhere in the guidelines, and the accommodation clause is explicit that the intern makes their own arrangement.

• Honorarium:An honorarium of ₹15,000/- per month will be paid to each intern.
• Certificate: A certificate will be received upon successful completion of the internship.
• Facilities: The department provides working space, internet facility, and other necessities as deemed fit by the Heads.
• Placement: Each selected intern will be posted with a Deputy Secretary, Director, Joint Secretary, or the office of the Secretary (WR, RD & GR) and will work closely with the IEC Section.

What to prepare

Documents required

The photograph, the curriculum vitae, the identity proof and the copies of educational certificates are routine, and the PAN card and bank passbook exist only so the honorarium can be transferred. Two other items are where an application is actually won or lost.

The first is the 500 words write-up on the reason for joining as an intern in DoWR, which the department reads before deciding whom to interview. The second is the No Objection Certificate, which the guidelines fix in a set format at Annexure-II: it goes on the college or institution letterhead, is signed by the Head of Department or Principal, confirms you are a bonafide student, and certifies that you are not registered for any course requiring your attendance in class during the internship period (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26).

That last certification is the one to raise with your department early. A student in the middle of a taught semester cannot honestly get it signed, which is why the programme suits someone between a degree and a next step more than someone mid-course.

Step by step

How to apply

Applications are taken online only. The guidelines send applicants to the department's internship page, and the notice that opened the second cycle was blunt about the alternative: the complete application with copies of the requisite documents is to be sent only through that link, and applications forwarded through any other mode shall be rejected (Notice and guidelines, Second Mass Communication Internship Programme). The form itself runs in labelled steps, from registration details through application details, contact details, qualification details and document uploads to a preview, and it opens by asking for the year, the programme you are applying to and your PAN number (Internship application portal).

That first screen is also the only status signal the department gives you. It names the cycle it is currently accepting and prints the last date to apply against it, so whether a window is live is visible there and nowhere else. The department publishes no status lookup for a submitted application and no payment tracker either, and there is nothing to track on the money side until an intern joins, since the honorarium is paid month by month against a bank mandate. The outcome arrives by the same route. Once shortlisting for the October 2025 cycle was done, the department posted a PDF of the candidates called for interview on its internship page, and that file is the whole notification (Internship Program in Mass Communication). For anything the page does not answer, the guidelines name the IEC Section as the contact point.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection is made on an assessment of candidates through a personal interview and marks scored in graduation. There is no written test, no group discussion and no separate merit list published before the interview stage.

The one shortlist the department has put out shows what those two filters produce. For the October 2025 cycle it called 28 candidates for interview, each entry carrying a graduation year and percentage, the subjects studied, an extract of the write-up and the interview mode fixed against it, online for most of the list and in person for the rest (List of shortlisted candidates for interview, Internship Program in Mass Communication). The graduation percentages on it reach 85.1 at the highest and fall to 55.91 at the lowest, a hair over the eligibility floor. Twenty-eight called against a maximum of three places is the arithmetic that matters: the interview, not the application, is where this is decided.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The attendance rules are strict enough to be a scheduling decision rather than a formality. This is a full time internship attended physically in the main secretariat, with interns required to present themselves from 9 am to 5.30 pm unless the controlling officer permits otherwise, and the same rules and regulations that apply to departmental employees apply to interns (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26).

What an intern leaves with is narrower than the work suggests. The internship is neither employment nor an assurance of employment with the department. The outcome of the study done during the internship remains the intellectual property of the department, and an intern may not use it without prior approval, which matters if you were hoping to build a portfolio piece or a dissertation chapter out of the work. The library is open to interns for reference only, with borrowing not extended. An intern who wants to leave early must give the department a week's notice.

Get help

Contact

The guidelines name a single point of contact: the Section Officer, IEC Section, DoWR, RD & GR, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Room No. 628A, Shram Shakti Bhawan, Rafi Marg, New Delhi, on 011-23354649 and at iec-mowr@nic.in (Guidelines for Internship programme 2025-26).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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References

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