Lucknow: Students studying in undergraduate programmes offered by the UP Technical University (UPTU) can soon access around 500 web-based and video courses on various engineering streams.

All these courses have been designed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and seven Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL).

This course has been designed for BTech students by IITs and has been compiled into 18 segments.

The UP Government was asked by the Central Government to accept these courses in engineering colleges to enhance the quality of teaching.

Colleges affiliated by the UPTU have also been asked to implement these courses.

The state government has also requested the Centre to develop these courses in Hindi.

"These courses will first be introduced in the university campus. A virtual lab for the same is being developed that is expected to be operational by July," said J. P. Pandey, additional examination controller UPTU.

"All colleges under UPTU have been directed to introduce these courses for BTech students, because these web and video based courses developed by faculties of the best institutes in country and are extremely useful for engineering students," added J. P. Pandey.