The portal of National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, offering online course content in web and video format, has emerged as the world's most viewed higher education site, the NTPEL claimed today.

The NTPEL channel in Youtube has received more than 39 million upload views, it said here during the launch of its national video server.

Launching the server, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said 1000 courses of technical and non-technical streams would be made available through this e-learning initiative by 2012, making it the largest repository of its kind in the world.

The courses are being rolled out under the phase II of NPTEL in disciplines like engineering, management, science and humanities.

"As compared to Massachusetts Institute of Technology which has a limited number of courses available, we have 1000 courses available in open source accessible to students both inside and outside the country free of cost," he said.

With today's launch, more than 250 university and university level institutions and nearly 11000 colleges which are already connected through the National Knowledge Network will be able to access and download the content.

The central server would be located at IIT Madras.

National Knowledge Network was implemented under a programme called National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology.

The course content can also be accessed through mobile phones.

Sibal said the server also promises to reduce students' over-dependence on google search engine for accessing education related content.