Railways to equip all stations across India with free Wi-Fi

Indian Railways to equip all the railway station across the nation with Wi-Fi by 2019 at an estimated cost of Rs 700 crore.
 
The Railway Ministry targets 600 Wi-Fi enabled railway stations by March 2018 and 100 per cent station Wi-Fi coverage by March 2019.
 
The station Wi-Fi project was launched in 2016 as a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative. This will provide free internet to all the passengers under Railwire, the retail broadband distribution model of RailTel Corporation of India Limited. 
 
RailTel is a Mini-Ratna PSU and one of India's largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers owning a pan-India optic fibre network on exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along railway tracks that has roped in Google to provide tech support and set up the wireless infrastructure. 
 
1,200 stations have been identified for this project in a recent Railway Ministry meeting.
 
Railway stations in rural areas will reportedly have Wi-Fi enabled kiosks that will become digital hotspots offering services such as digital banking, tax filing, paying bills, Aadhaar generation, issuing government certificates, including birth and death certificates, among others.
 
These kiosks will also enable the local populace to order and receive goods from e-commerce portals.