Thiruvananthapuram: Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar inaugurated the country's longest broadband terrestrial education grid connecting the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM-Kerala) and Nagaland University here on Saturday.

Nagaland Education Minister Shürhozelie appeared on the screen along with a Christian priest offering prayers as Aiyar switched on the button of the grid in the presence of Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and Kerala Education Minister M.A. Baby at the IIITM-K campus, Technopark.

Earlier, talking to reporters, vice-chancellor of Nagaland University, K. Kannan said, ''This is the first phase and students of the School of Engineering and Technology in Nagaland would be able to listen live and recorded lectures from the IIITM-K campus."

The transmission of lectures through 3800- km long link of the RailTel Corporation of India was successfully held in the trial run that started early this month.

"A new optical fibre link has been laid from the Thiruvananthapuram railway stations to our campus and a similar one has been laid from the Dimapur railway station to the campus of the Engineering college in Nagaland," said K.R.Srivathsan, director of IIITM-K.

The project was completed with the help of teachers of various IITs and Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore.

''Lectures on five engineering disciplines, including civil, mechanical, electronics, electrical and computer science would be available for the students of the engineering college in Nagaland through the link. Apart from this, there would be live lectures broadcast from the IITM-K campus here to the students there," said Mangala Sunder Krishnan, professor at the IIT Madras.

In the second phase of this connectivity, using the same link, several premier institutions and universities of the country would be connected to Nagaland to enhance education programmes at all levels, Kannan added. IANS