New Delhi railway station to have Wi-Fi connectivity

New Delhi railway station would be the first station in the country to have Wi-Fi connectivity. According to media reports, a Mumbai-based company has been given the contract to make the New Delhi station a Wi-Fi enabled station.

The station which handles more than 300 trains and 5 lakhs passengers every day will have Wi-Fi on all 16 platforms and can be accessed from laptops, mobile phones and other devices. The New Delhi station is chosen on a pilot basis to introduce the facility at an estimated cost of Rs 83 lakh. The system is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

Speaking about railway decision to make New Delhi railway station Wi-Fi, Kundan Kunal, a Delhi University student said “Its a good move as passengers will not have to get into boredom while waiting for their train. Moreover, it will offer Internet freak like me to stay connected with friends and family”.

Earlier in April this year Indian Railways launched a pilot project to provide Wi-Fi facility on Howrah Rajdhani Express. The service can be accessed by passengers free of cost with 4Mbps download and 512 kbps upload connection on Howrah and Delhi routes.

Besides free Wi-Fi connectivity, Indian Railways also plans to replace the existing information systems with tablets on station platform to provide passengers with train related information such as the current train position, expected arrival time etc.

Last month IRCTC had launched SMS-based train ticket booking service to book tickets using mobile phones. Earlier in February this year, the government announced to introduce a new e-ticketing system to enable booking of about 7,200 tickets per minute, a significant rise from 2,000 tickets a minute.