College students expecting free Internet - chief minister Nitish Kumar's Bihar Divas gift on Wednesday - have to wait for some more time.

Under the wi-fi connectivity scheme, students in educational institutions were to get free Internet connections but it appears that the IT department launched the scheme without doing its homework.

At most of colleges, including Patna Science College, the process of installing machines for the Internet connection is going on and it appears that it will take not less than two months.

Atul Aditya Pandey, a college professor who has been made the nodal officer at Patna Science College for looking after the wi-fi scheme, said: "The agency which is executing the work is yet to make connections at various departments. Till date, the executing agency has installed the tower and the server room has been set up. But from the server room, connections to various departments are yet to be made."

Sources said at Patna Science College, the underground cable work is in progress. Once the cabling work from the college's main administrative block to the departments is completed, the internal wiring will be done. Free wi-fi connectivity can be provided to colleges only after that.

The scene at Patna College, the state's oldest college, is similar. The underground optical fibre cabling work from the main administrative block to the departments has been completed, the Internet connections are yet to be made.

Iftikhar Hussain, the nodal officer of the wi-fi scheme at Patna College, said: "We have given several reminders to the IT department and L&T, the executing agency, to speed up the process so that wi-fi connectivity can be provided, but even after the scheme was launched on March 22, the project is yet to be completed."

He added: "For carrying out underground cabling work, the entire campus has been dug up, ruining the beauty of the 150-year-old college."

IT department secretary Rahul Singh said L&T had been told to finish the process by February. "They will be penalised for failing to meet the deadline," he added.

The worst-hit have been students, naturally. Mahesh Kumar Rai, an undergraduate student at Patna College, said: "We were very excited about the free wi-fi scheme, but it appears that we have to wait for some more time." Sources said none of the colleges under Patna University have free wi-fi connectivity.

On Wednesday, Bihar launched the free wi-fi services at around 300 educational institutions as part of promises under Nitish's seven resolves.

Under the scheme, students and teachers will have separate passwords. For students, the password will be their registration number; for teachers and staff, the password will be their PAN. Under the facility, each institution will have an Internet connection speed of 10MBPS (megabytes per second) and on an average there will be 15 access points - 10 indoor and five outdoor.

L&T and Sify were selected after a technical bidding process, but L&T was awarded the tender as it quoted the lowest bidding price.

As the primary focus is to provide Internet for education purpose, social networking sites and some other sites will not be accessible to users.