Today, Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu while presenting Railway Budget 2016-17 in Parliament said that the Indian Railways in partnership with Google offer Wi-Fi services at 400 stations across India in the next 2 years. Indian Railways, RailTel and Google launched free Wi-Fi service at the Mumbai Central station last month.
Google already said that Wi-Fi will be available in 100 more stations by the end of 2016, connecting more than 10 million people who pass through every day. At the launch, Google said “The Wi-Fi will be entirely free to start and the long-term goal will be making this self-sustainable to allow for expansion to more stations and places, with RailTel and other partners, in the future.”
Regarding the announcement, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA), said:
The domestic telecom industry welcomes the development of enabling 100 new railways stations with Wi-Fi services. This is a positive development in line with the government’s Digital India initiative to bring more internet users online. This would serve to be a great opportunity for the government to encourage domestic Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers to participate in the project and provide level playing field to the domestic players in line with the Make in India campaign. The domestic telecom industry would look forward to more such positive developments in the future and also appreciates the government’s efforts to urbanize the Indian Railways infrastructure.