Wi-Fi service launched at New Delhi railway station

Service is free for half-an-hour, after which passengers will be charged Rs 25 for 30 minutes and Rs 35 for an hour

The railways ministry on Monday launched a Wi-Fi service at New Delhi Railway Station that will help the 500,000 passengers using the country’s busiest station daily to connect to the web. Passengers will be able to use the service at any of the 16 platforms free for half-an-hour, after which they will be charged Rs 25 for 30 minutes and Rs 35 for an hour of usage by using a scratch card. “We have launched Wi-Fi service. Internet has become a new necessity for people,” Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu said after the launch.

Prabhu said the service will soon be expanded to cover more stations and even trains. The project is being implemented by RailTel, a public sector undertaking under the rail ministry. The Wi-Fi project has cost the railways Rs 50 lakh in installation, while an additional Rs 16 lakh will be spent annually to run the service. The Railways Wi-Fi will support maximum speed of 1 mega byte per second. As part of the project, RailTel has installed 60 wireless access points strategically at all the 16 platforms. It has also laid optic fibre cable at the platforms.

It has also laid Optic Fiber Cable at all the platforms at the station including Foot Over Bridge (FOB) and concourse areas.

Railways plans to provide Wi-Fi facility at 75 major stations within a year. The service is to be launched at Agra, Ahmedabad and Varanasi by the end of the current month apart from Howrah, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai and Secunderabad stations by January 2015 on a trial basis.

Indian Railways has also approached the IT ministry for financial support from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to providing Wi-Fi facility at way side stations in remote areas. Prabhu also said he has directed CRIS, the IT arm of the rail ministry, to develop an application focused at safety of women passengers.