Internship Experience @ Punjab State Human Rights Commission, Chandigarh: Good Work Environment, Research Work

– Anonymous

Name of Organisation, Location, Team Strength

Punjab State Human Rights Commission, Sector 34-A, Chandigarh.

Application Process

My college placement cell also provides internship with PSHRC and some of my batchmates got it through college placement cell, but I directly applied at pshrc.chd@gmail.com

PSHRC’s System Manager Rohit Chatrath replied within a few days confirming the internship.

Duration of internship and timings

Timings were from morning 9.30 am to 4-5 in the evening.

It was a month long internship in June with first fifteen or so days in the office doing the office tasks and for the next fifteen days we were given a project (research essay) to write and submit it by end of the month.

There was no need to go to office during the last fifteen days of research essay period, one could go on any day after the completion of the project and take the certificate after the submission of the project.

First impression, first day formalities, infrastructure

Like every other intern, I was also excited on the very first day of internship and reached office about 20 minutes earlier than the given time.

But to my surprise, almost all other 35 interns were already sitting in the conference room on the top floor of the office building.

At about 10:30, we were addressed by the hon’ble chairman of the commission Mr. Baljinder Singh Thakur and he introduced the commission to us.

Thereafter, he left and Mr. Rohit Chatrath took over and briefed us about the working of the commission.

The other staff members of the commission also introduced themselves and then the interns were asked to introduce themselves.

After the introduction, the real work started and we were given a questionnaire to fill up based on the introduction of the commission given by the hon’ble member and the staff members.

The day ended with these introductory formalities.

PSHRC’s office is a decent place and it is a building of four floors, all owned by the PSHRC.

The office is at a walking distance from Sector 35 which is sort of a food chains hub.

Main tasks

Main tasks for the first fifteen days ranged from reading the newspapers in the morning looking for news on which the commission can take suo-moto actions to reading complaints sent to the commission and segregating by putting them under pink, white and green forms.

We were put in groups and each group having at least one intern who could read and understand Punjabi, because the complaints were very often found to be in Punjabi.

For the last fifteen days, I was at home and working on the essay project and successfully submitted it by the end of the month.

Work environment and people

The office staff was very good and always ready to help, especially the system manager and in-charge of our internship Mr. Rohit Chatrath.

Fellow interns were also quite good, people from various law schools were interning together at the same time and it was a very good experience.

Best things

As I have mentioned that most of the complaints were written in Punjabi, so reading and understanding them used to be quite a funny task for us and all of us used to enjoy that moment.

Bad things

After a couple of days, the work seemed very monotonous except on the days when we were not doing the regular form filling work.

Stipend

No

Biggest Lessons

One should definitely do an internship with such a large group of interns as it gives a sense of competitiveness and that is when you get to know about the real ‘YOU.’

It’s because you never know where you will be in future and have to be ready for everything that comes your way.

Any Other Thing

PSHRC is one of the best HR Commissions in India after NHRC and one should definitely experience an internship there in the first or second year of their studies.