Lectures by eminent teachers and scholars will be telecast, besides students can interact with the experts in the studio. The ministry has asked the department of space to provide two transponders for beaming the channels, ministry sources told Deccan Herald.

The existing 70 odd education channels telecast a variety of programmes aimed at students but the content is more general in nature. The new channels will be an improvement and subject specific.

As part of its technical knowledge dissemination programme, the MHRD has already created a repository of over 100 courses in web format and over 130 courses in video format, covering engineering and sciences. Each course comprises around 40 hours of lectures by the best faculty from the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science.

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) are also preparing curriculum-based videos in science and humanities. “These will be telecast through the channels,” the sources said.

The ISRO transponders will take on the role of the erstwhile education satellite-Edusat-which was   in orbit since 2004 and decommissioned in 2010 due to a technical snag. The existing educational channels are being beamed through Insat-4CR and Insat-3C satellites.