New Delhi: Ellenabad Railway Station of Bikaner Division of North Western Railway, became the 3000th station in the country to have free public Wi-Fi. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday tweeted, ''Number of Wi-Fi-equipped railway stations has breached the unprecedented 3,000 marks as another 56 stations were connected yesterday.''
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In a missive, the Minister also highlighted that free Wi-Fi 'is helping passengers stay connected' to their loved ones even while traveling.
Ellenabad, situated in the north of the Ghaggar- Hakra river, is a historic town of Haryana and serves as a port of entry into the state of Haryana from Rajasthan. The 2000th station to have Wi-Fi was Rana Pratap Nagar, which was also in the North Western Railway, was implemented on August 3, this year.
Talking about the Wi-Fi project, CMD of RailTel Puneet Chawla said, ''We are going full throttle for providing Wi-Fi at all assigned stations.1000 stations across India have been enabled with Wi-Fi in a mere 15 days time which speaks volumes of the capability and dedication of the team.''
In order to fulfill the promise of bringing fast and free Wi-Fi at all Railway stations over Railways(except the halt stations), team RailTel is dedicatedly putting all-out effort to meet the target.
With the vision of turning Railway stations into a platform for Digital inclusion, RailTel started providing free public Wi-Fi service at stations over Indian Railways. In the first phase, the Wi-Fi was made life at 1,600 stations across the country. RailTel has now roped in Tata Trust for providing Wi-Fi at remaining stations across the 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. The easy and low-cost availability of Smartphones in the market coupled with free Wi-Fi at railway stations in the rural areas will go a long way in the digital growth for rural India.