This is in the context of PM’s dream of Digital India that Wi-Fi facility has been launched at the most busiest railway station of the country - New Delhi.
Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Union Minister of Railways, has inaugurated the Wi-Fi Broadband Services at New Delhi Railway Station. The project is being executed by RailTel, a Public Sector Undertaking of the Ministry of Railways. Also present, among others, on the occasion were Meenakshi Lekhi, Member of Parliament from New Delhi, Chairman, Railway Board, Arunendra Kumar, Member Traffic, Railway Board, D. P. Pande, Member Staff, Railway Board, A. K. Mital, General Manger, Northern Railways, Pradeep Kumar, CMD, RailTel, R. K. Bahuguna and other senior officials of the Railways and RailTel.
Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that expectations of railway users are quite basic in nature like cleanliness in stations and trains, quality in catering and security and safety. It is the responsibility and the duty of the railway administration to meet their expectations. The Indian Railways have been a number of measures to improve the facilities of the railway users. The world is seeing the changes in various fields and the Railways should also keep pace with the latest technology.
He also added Wi-Fi facility which is being provided at New Delhi station will be extended to other stations and also in running trains. He asked RailTel to work out a business model for this purpose. The Union Railway Minister informed that he has also directed CRIS, the IT arm of the Ministry of Railways, to develop an application for the safety of women passengers. He also said that such an application should be part of an integrated system involving all the stakeholders. He said we should also encourage our railway personnel to use more IT-related products and they should be accordingly given the facility of IT products.
The Wi-Fi facility is to be provided at 75 A1 category stations within a period of 12 months. On a trial basis, the facility is to be launched at Agra, Ahmedabad and Varanasi by the end of December 2014 and at Howrah, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai and Secunderabad by January 2015. The Ministry of Communications & Information Technology has been approached for financial support from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for providing Wi-Fi facility at wayside stations, particularly in the remote areas.
The RailWire-powered Wi-Fi will give maximum speed of 1 mbps. Wi-Fi facility shall be available to the users free of cost initially for a period of 30 minutes by registering on the Wi-Fi network through their mobile. For usage beyond 30 minutes, the users may purchase scratch cards, which will be made available at the 24X7 Wi-Fi Help Desks in the concourse on Paharganj and Ajmeri gate side of station adjoining platform Nos. 1 and 16, respectively. These cards are priced at Rs.25 for 30 minutes and Rs.35 for 1 hour and are valid through 24 hours.
The Wi-Fi facility is being executed by RailTel with a Gigabit Ethernet network using Optic-Fibre Cable (OFC) in a ring. 22 such GE switches deliver to 60 numbers of Wireless Access Points (AP), which are commissioned strategically at all 16 platforms including the concourse area. OFC cable has been laid in all the platforms at New Delhi Station, including Foot Overbridge (FOB) and concourse. The total cost of the project is Rs.50 lakh and an amount of Rs.16 lakh will be spent annually to run the facility.
