Context and setting The five and a half year MBBS programme in India prepares a ‘basic’ doctor. The internship period occurs during the final year of this programme, and is intended to develop the skills required. The 3-month internship rotation in community medicine is the time when the intern works in a primary care setting to acquire the skills required for primary care. Why the idea was necessary Regulatory bodies have recommended monitoring of the acquisition of competencies by interns. However, there is no structured programme for interns to develop essential competencies in primary care settings or assessment of skills acquired at the end of the community posting. Moreover, because there is a shortage of faculty in primary care settings, the curriculum innovation evaluated peer feedback as a tool for improving competencies among interns. What was done Diarrhoea case management (DCM) and family planning counselling (FPC) were prioritised based on health-centre and faculty data. The faculty and primary health-centre staff were orientated about the need, the role of feedback and correct usage of the checklists. Each patient encounter was observed by peers or faculty using a standardised checklist [DCM, using the World Health Organization/United Nation’s Children’s Fund integrated management of sick child guidelines and FPC using the GATHER (Greet, Ask, Tell, Help, Explain, Return) technique] and interns were provided with feedback at the end of the encounter. A total of 22 interns posted for 3 months in 7 health centres underwent 145 patient encounters (74 for DCM and 71 for FPC). Most of the interns underwent at least 3 and 4 feedback encounters, respectively, for diarrhoea and family planning. A retrospective pre–post survey was performed to assess the impact the programme had had on the intern’s knowledge, attitude and skill, as well as to gain input on the process for its improvement. Evaluation of the results and impact Analysis of the scoring pattern on the feedback checklist showed improvement in the interns’ competency, as revealed by an increasing proportion scoring ‘completely done’ with every subsequent session. Similarly, submodule analysis using repeated-measures ANOVA with Greenhouse–Geisser correction revealed that interns improved significantly in skill from their first case to their third or fourth case in mean marks for most submodules for diarrhoea case management (F-value 22AE56, P < 0AE005). Although there was also an increase in competency in the family planning counselling submodules, it was inconclusive (F-value 3AE42, P 1⁄4 0AE054). Analysis of the impact of the programme on the interns using a retrospective pre–post survey tool revealed a statistically significant change in their knowledge, skill and attitude, with most interns reporting that the structured checklist and feedback programme helped them to improve their competencies and acquire the art of self-directed life-long learning. The proportion of peer:faculty feedback was 60:40 and 65:35, respectively, for the DCM and FPC cases; thus, any improvement in clinical competency is likely to be due to peer feedback. Peer feedback using structured checklists appears to be a useful, feasible and effective method of enhancing competencies of interns in primary care settings in resource-poor countries.