Patna, Dec. 5: East Central Railway (ECR) has roped in Google in a bid to provide Wi-Fi service at Patna Junction.
Residents of Patna would get the service from February 2016, said an ECR official.
The railway ministry had assigned the work to RailTel Corporation of India, a public sector unit, which signed an agreement with Mahataa Information India Private Limited (an arm of Google), recently. According to the agreement, Mahataa Information India would provide Wi-Fi services to 400 railway stations of India in two phases.
The railway stations have been divided into two categories - A1 and A. In the first phase, 100 stations under the AI category would be covered with the service.
In the second phase, 300 platforms falling under the A category would be covered.
"As Patna Junction comes under the A1 category, it would be equipped with Wi-Fi facility and wiring work has already started. According to the latest report, we are sure to start the facility by February 2016," said ECR chief public relation officer Arvind Kumar Rajak.
Patna is already equipped with a 18km-long Wi-Fi zone, reportedly one of the longest Wi-Fi stretches in Asia.
Unlike the service in the town, the facility at Patna junction would not be free of cost. As the project is being executed on the public-private partnership mode, ECR has decided to charge passengers for using the service.
Internet users at the station have to pay Rs 25 for every half an hour and Rs 40 for one hour of usage. Scratch cards would be made available at the Wi-Fi centre of the platforms. Two kinds of cards will be available - one-hour utility card and half-an-hour utility card. Users can buy a card according to their usage. The cards work like cellphone recharge cards. Passengers with smart phones, laptops and tablets can use the service and it would cover all the 10 platforms of Patna junction.
"Work of laying the cables is going on at present and this will be followed by the installation of wireless access points. We have not yet received the router, which is the main equipment of the Wi-Fi service. Once we finish with the wiring, we expect to get the routers," a senior ECR official told The Telegraph on condition of anonymity.
Patna junction is one of the most crowded stations under the ECR. It receives a footfall of around 1.75 lakh everyday with 350 trains passing through. A Wi-Fi service would be a boon.
Under ECR, Dhanbad, Mugalsarai, Gaya, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga are the stations, which fall in the A1 category. These stations would also be enabled with a Wi-Fi service soon.
