The state-run institution will seek assistance from leading domestic and overseas corporates to part-fund the project. "We are planning to raise funds from leading oil companies and others in the form of advance fee for our services," NITIE director Thomas Mathew told The Financial Express.

To start with, NITIE is planning to unveil its main courses and an Internet course on the Net. NITIE will also set up an exclusive portal to offer the course content to its students. Details are still being worked out, Mathew said.

Although discussions are on with some software and networking companies to webcast the programme, NITIE may go it alone. "The board of directors has not yet taken any decision on the proposed alliances. We will launch at least 10 customer-specific courses on the Net in a phased manner," he added.The institute is also looking at building a strong NITIE brand in the Indian infotech education segment. The proposed portal will be the main vehicle to promote its services in India and other countries. However, the state-owned institute is not planning to corporatise the existing structure.

NITIE is planning to make use of the emergence technologies including the interactive television. "If the concept of interactive TV becomes a reality in the country, we will be able to offer live programmes to our students," Mathew said. Industry sources say that the institute will have to cough up additional funds in order to take on the already existing players like Aptech and NIIT.

Mathew said the decision to offer e-commerce related courses comes in the wake of a good response from multinationals. Blue chips like Oracle, SISL, Satyam, i2 technologies have already picked up NITIE students through placements.

NITIE offers post-graduate courses on industrial management and industrial engineering. The industrial engineering course focuses on streams like logistics, operations, e-commerce, enterprise resource planning, etc.