Cuttack, April 9: Students of technical colleges will have satellite technology at their disposal by the end of this month.

The Directorate of Technical Education & Training (DTET) here had launched the initiative aimed at providing satellite-based education and facilitate the availability of adequate and updated reading material for engineering students.

DTET officials said satellite interactive terminals (SIT) would be installed in the technical institutions under the Edusat pilot project of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).

?Isro is expected to complete the installation of a regional Ku-band hub for its educational satellite, Edusat, at Biju Patnaik Film & Television Institute in Cuttack within a fortnight,? said R.K. Ray, state coordinator of the Edusat project.

The DTET had asked all engineering colleges under Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) to instal SITs. ?The response has been near total,? Ray said.

The engineering colleges are expected to pay Rs 2.5 lakh for the equipment required to instal the terminals.

The Ku-band hub entails an expenditure of nearly Rs 84 lakh. The State Council of Technical Education and BPUT will bear the cost.

Last year, Isro had proposed that the DTET uses satellite-based education services for the benefit of the state?s technical colleges. The project had since been approved by the Orissa government and is in an advanced stage of implementation.

The hub is expected to handle eight networks (teaching ends), which can feed 500 satellite interactive terminals (?receiving ends). The university also wants to use Edusat for preparing a digital library.