NPTEL is the largest e-repository in the world of courses in engineering, basic sciences and selected humanities and management subjects.

The project's central idea is to put recorded lectures taught by its member institutes online for open access.

The local languages which the translation are available in include Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.

[4] NPTEL was launched in 2003 by seven IITs: Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee, in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Science (IISC).

[8] The NPTEL has adopted the MOOC (Massive open online course) model so that students outside IIT system can also participate in learning quality content and get certified, provided they meet the assessment criteria in the exams conducted at the end of the NPTEL semesters.