College pupils across the country will now get free access to e-journals and e-books from all over the world with the human resource development ministry subscribing to them.

Over 2,000 journals have been subscribed to by the ministry under the project titled N-List (National Library and Information Services Infrastructure for Scholarly Content). These will be provided to students in various colleges free of cost.

A ministry official said, "It is a part of the ICT (information and communication technology) initiatives of the government. The resources include more than 2,100 e-journals and 51,000 e-books."

The plan will cover up premier technical institutions such as IITs, IISc, IISERs and NITs together with 6,000 government and government aided colleges across India. Private institutions are also eligible for membership on the payment of a fee.

Government colleges have to pay Rs 5,000 as twelve-monthly membership charge whereas private colleges will have to pay an annual subscription of Rs 46,000.

The facility will, however, be free for the pupils.

The e-resources include publications from American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, Annual Reviews, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Royal Society of Chemistry and Tata McGraw Hill, along with major Indian journals and publications. (With Inputs from Agencies)