The Railways have always been in the forefront of nation building by creating better travel opportunities. Indian Railways has effectively contributed towards the “Digital India” movement turning many Railway stations into platforms for Digital inclusion by providing free Wi-Fi service (Wireless Fidelity). Sahibabad Station over Northern Railway has become the 1500th station in the country to get free Wi-Fi facility provided by RailTel. Earlier the entire Delhi-Ambala and Ambala- Chandigarh sections and Kalka Shimla Hill Railways in Northern Railway had been covered with free Wi-Fi service at stations.
The high-speed Broadband Internet Connectivity has been made live with ‘RailWire’ Wi-Fi by RailTel, which is a Mini Ratna CPSU under the Ministry of Railways. The PSU provides one of the largest and fastest public Wi-Fi networks of the world. Recently a record was set by covering 500 stations with Wi-Fi in a short period of 7days. In order to set up free Wi-Fi at all Railway stations on the Indian Railways network (except the halt stations) within a year, the PSU is ceaselessly working to achieve the goal. For this RailTel has also tied up with Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at 4791 B, C, D and E category stations.
Sharing the spectacular journey of the PSU, Sh. Puneet Chawla, CMD/RailTel said that, “the project was initiated from Mumbai Central Station, Sahibabad gets the distinction of becoming the 1500th. We are now targeting the smaller stations and striving to complete the project by the year end. These are very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas. As there is a visible digital divide between Rural and Urban India, the rural population is often deprived of the latest telecom infrastructure mainly provided by the private operators. The Indian Railways has taken the initiative of providing free Wi-Fi at the stations so that not only the rail users but also the local populace can benefit from it.”
