Onlykashmir.in News Desk
The Jammu and Kashmir Government has accorded formal approval to the Chief Minister’s Digital Internship Programme 2026 (Batch-I), a six-month paid initiative designed to give the Union Territory’s technology students hands-on exposure to governance-driven digital work. The scheme marks one of the administration’s most concrete steps yet toward building a homegrown technology talent pipeline tied directly to public service delivery.
The programme will be rolled out by the J&K e-Governance Agency and is open to students pursuing BE, B.Tech, M.Tech, MCA and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Science or Information Technology. Selected interns will work on live GovTech assignments spanning cybersecurity, digital services and e-governance infrastructure, areas the administration has identified as central to its modernisation push over the coming years.
Beyond project work, the scheme builds in structured mentorship from domain experts, intended to sharpen participants’ technical capabilities while exposing them to the practical demands of running large-scale public digital systems. Each selected intern will receive a monthly stipend of ten thousand rupees for the duration of the six-month term, a figure the government positions as sufficient to let talented students commit fully to the programme without needing to seek parallel employment.
Recognition has also been built into the design. Every intern who completes the programme will receive a certificate signed personally by the Chief Minister, while the most outstanding contributions will be considered for a dedicated Best Intern Initiative Award, a signal that the administration wants to treat the internship as more than a resume line for participants.
Officials frame the initiative as part of a broader strategy to connect young professionals directly with governance challenges rather than leaving digital transformation solely to contracted vendors. By embedding students inside real GovTech projects, the government hopes to both accelerate specific technology initiatives and build a bench of locally trained talent familiar with the Union Territory’s administrative systems.
The launch comes at a time when Jammu and Kashmir has been actively courting technology investment and skilling programmes as pillars of its economic diversification plans. For the students selected in Batch-I, the programme offers a rare bridge between academic training and applied public-sector technology work, one the administration hopes will become a recurring annual feature rather than a one-time pilot.
