Rana Pratap Nagar railway station of Ajmer Division (NWR), Rajasthan became the 2,000th station in the country to have public Wi-Fi provided by RailTel. Currently, 2,000 stations across the country now have fast and free RailWire Wi-Fi provided by RailTel.
Talking about the Wi-Fi project, Puneet Chawla, chairman and managing director, RailTel, said, “Our team is working round the clock and with each passing day execution pace is only increasing.”
RailTel started providing the free public Wi-Fi service at Indian railway station with a vision of turning railway stations into a platform for digital inclusion. In the first phase the Wi-Fi was made live at 1,600 stations across country. Now, RailTel has roped in Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at remaining stations (except the halt ones) across country.
The idea behind providing free Wi-Fi to these very small stations catering to mainly rural/low population density areas is to provide the people with state of the art Wi-Fi facility. Easy and low-cost availability of smartphones in the market coupled with free Wi-Fi at railway stations in rural area will go a long way in the digital growth for rural India. While private operators finds it hard to create telecom infrastructure in rural areas due to high capex involved, RailTel is penetrating the hinterland of the country to bring state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure for the rural population bridging the digital divide of urban and rural India.
