Free Wi-Fi at 715 railway stations -Governance Now

Free Wi-Fi at 715 railway stations

Free Wi-Fi services at 715 railway stations have been used by 1.3 million unique users till October 2018

Vishwas Dass | December 21, 2018 | Delhi

#Google #Piyush Goyal #railway station #Indian Railways #internet #WiFi #RailTel

The Indian Railways’ ambitious plan of providing free Wi-Fi services has started showing results, as 715 out of 5,734 proposed stations have got the facility as on December 14.

Minister of railways Piyush Goyal has been laying emphasis on speedy completion of the programme for the benefit of lakhs of commuters. More than 23 million passengers travel everyday in over 10,000 trains of the railways.

Internet search giant Google is supporting the programme by collaborating with Indian Railways to enable passengers avail free Wi-Fi services at the station premises. The programme is being jointly executed by the railway’s enterprise RailTel and Google.

The programme had earlier snowballed into a controversy after reports of people watching porn at railway stations through free Wi-Fi surfaced in the media. Some modifications have been done now by the service provider to restrict pornographic content on the wireless internet service.

RailTel has entered into a pact with Mahataa Information India Private Limited (MIIPL), an Indian subsidiary of Google Inc., for providing free Wi-Fi at 438 A1 and A category stations. The project cost is being shared by RCIL and MIIPL.

RailTel has also joined hands with Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) of the department of telecommunications, ministry of communications, for providing Wi-Fi at 200 rural railway stations. For this, Rs 27.77 crore has been provided by the ministry of communications under USOF.

Minister of state of railways, Rajen Gohain in a reply to a question in Lok Sabha said free Wi-Fi services at 715 railway stations have been used by 1.3 million unique users till October 2018.

List of stations (statewise) where Wi-Fi internet facility is planned:-

S.No.	Name of State	No. of Stations
1.	Andhra Pradesh	449
2.	Arunachal Pradesh	02
3.	Assam	225
4.	Bihar	366
5.	Chhattisgarh	109
6.	Delhi	25
7.	Goa	06
8.	Gujarat	352
9.	Haryana	117
10.	Himachal Pradesh	42
11.	Jammu & Kashmir	29
12.	Jharkhand	191
13.	Karnataka	159
14.	Kerala	110
15.	Madhya Pradesh	363
16.	Maharashtra	489
17.	Manipur	02
18.	Meghalaya	02
19.	Mizoram	01
20.	Nagaland	02
21.	Odisha	207
22.	Puducherry	03
23.	Punjab	211
24.	Rajasthan	453
25.	Tamilnadu	428
26.	Telangana	10
27.	Tripura	12
28.	Uttar Pradesh	785
29.	Uttarakhand	19
30.	West Bengal	565
Total		5734

According to data, Uttar Pradesh has got the maximum number of 785 stations where this service will be provided followed by 565 of West Bengal and 489 of Maharashtra.

The railways’ initiative hogged much limelight after a porter Sreenath K cracked Kerala Public Service Commission exam by using free internet service at Kerala's Ernakulam station in May this year.

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