National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme-2(NAPS-2)

There is no last date to apply, because engagement is continuous and driven by whatever an establishment posts. The dates that matter are the ones inside the payment month.

That last row has already passed, so it is worth setting each source beside its date. The guidelines fix the sunset at 31 March 2026 and provide for mid-term and end-term evaluation, and the Cabinet's approval of 7 February 2025 funded the Skill India Programme, PM-NAPS included, on an outlay of Rs 8,800 crore covering 2022-23 to 2025-26 (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE; Press Information Bureau, Cabinet, 7 February 2025). Eight days before the sunset, on 23 March 2026, MSDE was still describing NAPS-2 as the phase the scheme is being run under (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 23 March 2026). After the date passed the ministry kept committing money to it: on 17 July 2026 it extended the North Eastern Region intervention for FY 2026-27, targeting 30,000 apprentices on an outlay of Rs 57.58 crore drawn from the North Eastern Region component of PM-NAPS (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 17 July 2026).

What no source publishes is a revised guideline moving that 31 March 2026 date, so the operative document is out of step with the ministry's own FY 2026-27 spending. The practical consequence sits in the contract rather than in the policy: ask the establishment whether it is creating a DBT contract before you sign, because the portal shows the establishment and government split on a DBT contract and shows the whole amount as the employer's on a non-DBT one.

The floor is age, not marks. An apprentice must be at least 14 years old, and at least 18 for designated trades in hazardous industries, under Section 3(a) of the Apprentices Act, 1961 (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). Beyond that, what qualifies you is the curriculum of the trade you want: MSDE's own description of the process names a minimum of 5th class pass plus the educational, technical and physical qualifications the trade prescribes (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 18 August 2025).

Past 35, what stops is the funding rather than the training. To draw the government's partial stipend support, the upper age limit at the time of registration is 35 years. An establishment that does not want the NAPS-2 benefit can still engage an older apprentice on the age terms the Apprentices Act itself allows (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-I, MSDE).

Two gates then sit on the paperwork rather than on you. A contract can be issued only to a candidate who has entered an Aadhaar number and completed e-KYC on the apprenticeship portal, and the government's share is restricted to courses aligned to the National Skills Qualifications Framework even though NSQF compliance is otherwise not mandatory under the scheme (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

On the employer's side the Apprentices Act sets the arithmetic: establishments with four or more employees may engage apprentices, and engagement is mandatory at 30 or more employees (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 18 August 2025).

The biggest exclusion has nothing to do with the apprentice. It is a category of employer, and it removes the money for everyone inside it. No stipend support is available under NAPS-2 to Central and State Government departments, or to Central and State public sector undertakings and enterprises, public sector banks included (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). Such an apprenticeship can still run; it simply runs without the Rs 1,500.

Between the two versions, basic training cost also stopped being reimbursed. The earlier scheme shared basic training cost with training providers up to Rs 7,500 per apprentice, for up to 500 hours at Rs 15 per hour. NAPS-2 reimburses none of it, for designated and optional trades alike, and folds basic training into the apprenticeship duration instead (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-I, MSDE).

Large private organisations are invited to give the support up voluntarily under a "Give It Up Campaign", which is an opt-out and not a disqualification (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). And an establishment or third-party aggregator found misusing the benefits, or not training as the Apprentices Act, 1961 and the Apprenticeship Rules, 1992 require, is blacklisted and barred from taking part again (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Nothing here renews on a calendar. The government's share is due every month of the training period, and the training period is fixed by the trade at the start: ordinarily one year in a designated trade for an ITI pass-out, two years for a fresher, and six, nine or twelve months in an optional trade, which may run longer only with MSDE's approval (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). What has to be repeated monthly is the establishment's payment, because the DBT leg fires only after it.

The government share is a percentage of what is actually paid, not of what the contract promises. It is 25% of the stipend paid, subject to Rs 1,500 per apprentice per month, transferred to the apprentice's bank account (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). Above a stipend of Rs 6,000 a month the cap bites, and every rupee beyond it is the employer's. The guidelines work it twice: a Rs 5,000 stipend splits into Rs 3,750 from the establishment and Rs 1,250 from the government, while a contract of Rs 10,000 trimmed to Rs 6,000 for 60% attendance splits into Rs 4,500 and Rs 1,500 (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

The stipend the split works on has a statutory floor, set by qualification under Rule 11 of the Apprenticeship Rules, 1992 as amended up to 2019.

That table is the pre-revision one, and it is still the version the guidelines carry. The 38th Central Apprenticeship Council, meeting on 26 May 2025, recommended a 36% increase that would move the band from Rs 5,000 to Rs 9,000 up to Rs 6,800 to Rs 12,300, with later revisions tied to the Consumer Price Index (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 26 May 2025). MSDE was still calling the hike proposed in August 2025, then told Parliament in February 2026 that the Council's decisions had been approved and notified through the Gazette of India (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 18 August 2025; Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 11 February 2026). A revision applies from the date of the Gazette notification, so the rate that binds your contract is the one in force on the day it is signed (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Two benefits sit outside the monthly transfer. The first is regional: a pilot launched on 20 May 2025 added Rs 1,500 a month for one year, over and above the government share, for apprentices from the North Eastern Region, and MSDE extended it for FY 2026-27 on 17 July 2026 with a target of 30,000 apprentices and an outlay of Rs 57.58 crore. The pilot had mainly backed apprentices who moved out of their home state; the extension brings in those training inside their own North Eastern state as well (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 20 May 2025; Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 17 July 2026). The second is the paperwork you leave with: a National Apprenticeship Certificate in designated trades, a Certificate of Proficiency in optional trades, an experience letter covering the training period for ITI graduates, and quick registration on the National Career Service portal on completion (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 23 March 2026; NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Aadhaar is the one document with no substitute: the number must be entered and e-KYC completed on the portal before any contract can be issued, and mobile OTP authentication is mandatory for every candidate (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

The bank account comes next, and the portal is fussier about it than most scholarship systems. It has to be Aadhaar linked and held in a scheduled bank under the Reserve Bank of India, with scheduled regional rural banks and scheduled foreign banks excluded; the portal verifies the account and lists the banks it will accept, and the transfer runs over the Aadhaar Payment Bridge through NPCI (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE). Everything else is trade specific, which is why the scheme's own document list stops at Aadhaar and the papers your chosen trade demands (National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme-2, myScheme).

Your employer carries its own file. Establishment credentials are checked against PAN, TAN, GSTIN and EPFO records through API integrations wherever those checks can be automated (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

You apply to an employer, not to the ministry. MSDE describes the sequence as registering on the apprenticeship portal using Aadhaar or a unique identification number, opening the "Get Started" option, following the Candidate User Manual, searching the apprenticeship opportunities establishments have posted, applying, receiving and accepting an offer letter, executing the contract of apprenticeship online, and then starting training (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 18 August 2025). Candidate and establishment registration, course creation, opportunity postings, contract management and the DBT payments all sit on the same portal (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

If you would rather meet employers in person, the Pradhan Mantri National Apprenticeship Mela runs on the second Monday of every month in at least a third of the districts of every state (Press Information Bureau, MSDE, 18 August 2025).

There is a decision inside the contract that most candidates never notice. At contract creation the establishment chooses, for that contract, whether to take the NAPS-2 benefit. If it does, the contract is a DBT contract and the portal displays the establishment share and the government share as a split written into the contract itself. If it does not, the contract records the whole stipend as the establishment's to pay (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE). Before signing a DBT contract you have to give consent to the DBT component and enter your Aadhaar linked bank details on the portal, so read the split on screen before you accept.

Tracking Your Contract and Your Stipend

Track the payment where it is generated, which is your own portal login. The portal carries a claim status and DBT payment dashboard inside the establishment and apprentice accounts, and payment details for the government share appear against each candidate (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). Four behaviours are worth knowing before you chase anyone:

• The DBT is triggered automatically once the apprentice's bank confirms the establishment's share has landed, and never before it (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).
• DBT updates are sent to the candidate by SMS as well as shown on the portal (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).
• A failed payment shows the reason against your name on the portal, so the fix is usually visible without a phone call (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).
• Failed payments are re-initiated automatically once that reason is addressed (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

Cash is not an option at any point in this chain: stipend payment in cash is not permitted, and the establishment pays its share through the payment solution on the portal (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

The employer selects you; the government validates the contract. Approval of apprenticeship contracts, along with examination and certification, sits with the Apprenticeship Advisers, meaning the Regional Directorates of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship for designated trades under Central jurisdiction, the State Apprenticeship Advisers for establishments under state jurisdiction, and the Sector Skill Council chief executives, appointed Joint Apprenticeship Advisers, for optional trades under Central jurisdiction (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Verification here is not a formality. Credentials that cannot be verified through API integrations must be checked by an Apprenticeship Adviser before a contract is issued, and Advisers physically verify at least 10% of the establishments in their jurisdiction every quarter to confirm training matches the contract (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE). Third-party aggregators empanelled by MSDE do the matching in between, mobilising candidates and processing claims for establishments with a stated focus on MSMEs, and they file a monthly performance report with NSDC and MSDE (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Everything under this scheme is contract law before it is scheme policy. Apprenticeship training runs under the Apprentices Act, 1961 and the Apprenticeship Rules, 1992, on a contract of apprenticeship whose terms can differ by category of apprentice (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Attendance changes the number, not just the record. The establishment updates the stipend actually payable each month after adjusting for attendance and unauthorised leave, and the government share is then computed on that reduced figure, which is why the worked example above lands on Rs 6,000 rather than Rs 10,000 (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

An existing contract can move between the two modes in one direction only: a NAPS contract may be updated to a DBT or a non-DBT contract, while a contract created as a non-NAPS contract can only become a non-DBT contract (NAPS-2 Guidelines, Annexure-IV, MSDE).

Grievances start on the portal. Apprentices, establishments, aggregators and Advisers all raise queries through the query redressal tool linked to the apprenticeship portal, which registers the complaint and tracks its resolution status in real time, and DBT complaints run through the same tool with automatic escalation when the timeline slips (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE).

Above the tool sits a named chain. A dedicated call centre answers the NAPS-2 helpline, and an unresolved grievance escalates to designated authorities at state level, the State Apprenticeship Advisers, and at central level, the Regional Directorates, the Joint Apprenticeship Advisers and the Central Apprenticeship Adviser (NAPS-2 Guidelines, MSDE). The guidelines name that helpline without printing its number, so take the current number from the portal rather than from a listing site.