As many as 1.3 million passengers have already used RailWire connectivity.
NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways has provided free Wi-Fi connectivity (RailWire) at more than 700 railways stations, which have been used by as many as 1.3 million passengers. The government move is being supported by internet search giant Google and Railway’s enterprise RailTel.
With a view to provide internet connectivity to railways passengers, the railways had decided to provide free Wi-Fi connectivity at 5,734 railway stations. According to a railway official, the facility has been started at as many as 715 railways stations till last week which has been used by 1.3 million passengers. The service was started from Mumbai Central station in January 2016 as a key initiative under the Digital India programme. As many as 100 railway stations were covered under the scheme within a year of its launch.
The RailTel Corporation of India Limited (RCIL) has entered into an agreement with Mahataa Information India Pvt Ltd (MIIPL), an Indian subsidiary of Google, for providing free Wi-Fi service at 438 stations of ‘A1’ and ‘A’ categories. The complete cost has been shared by RCIL and MIIPL, according to a Railway official, adding no fund has been provided by the government for it. However, the official said, the Ministry of Communications has provided Rs 27.77 crore for providing Wi-Fi connectivity at 200 rural stations for which the RCIL has entered into an MoU with Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) of Department of Telecommunication. Railways Minister Piyush Goyal has been laying emphasis on speedy completion of the scheme for the benefit of railway passenger. As per estimates, more than 23 million passengers travel everyday in more than 10,000 trains all over the country. Once fully implemented, RailWire will be one of the largest public Wi-Fi projects in the world.
The services provides high speed connectivity for viewing uninterrupted high definition download of movies, songs, games by the passengers at the railway station.
Sources said earlier there were some complaints about people watching porn sites at railway stations through free Wi-Fi connectivity. However, some modifications have now been made by the services provides to restrict pornographic content on the wireless Internet service, they added.