Chief minister Nitish Kumar will on Wednesday launch free wi-fi facility for students at universities and colleges on the occasion of Bihar Divas.

With this move, all government-run educational institutions, including those in Patna, will be equipped with wi-fi facility, moving a step closer towards fulfilling the chief minister's seven resolves.

The facility is free for students. Each institution will get internet connection at 10Mbps (megabytes per second) speed and, on an average, there will be 15 access points, 10 indoor and five outdoor.

"As part of chief minister Nitish Kumar's promise under the seven resolves, free wi-fi facility will be provided to the students," IT department secretary Rahul Singh said. "The facility will be formally launched at a Bihar Divas function in Gandhi Maidan."

The IT department selected L&T, as it presented the lowest bidding price to provide bandwidth services of Airtel.

Two companies - L&T and Sify - were selected through a technical bidding process, but in the end L&T, which had submitted the lowest bidding price, got the tender. Though the wi-fi services will be provided at all educational institutions - engineering, management and medical colleges too - the command centre will be located in Patna. As the primary focus of the service will be to provide Internet connection to students for studies, users will be prohibited from getting access to social networking and other sites.

The total budget for the project is Rs 190 crore, out of which Rs 100 crore was allocated in 2016-17.

The wi-fi service will be available at 308 educational institutions in 29 universities.

The idea behind providing free wi-fi to youths, mostly the students, is aimed at making Bihar's youth techno-friendly. This will contribute in the technological development of the state.

Sources said that Nitish had borrowed the idea of providing free wi-fi facility to students from Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. As part of his poll promises, Kejriwal had announced free wi-fi facility to students.

IT sources said the biggest beneficiaries of the project would be students from rural areas. Many colleges in Patna and some major cities and towns are already providing free Internet. Apart from engineering colleges like IIT-Patna, NIT and BIT, colleges like Magadh Mahila College in Patna provide free wi-fi facility to students.

"We have wi-fi service in our college but only those students studying in BCA or BBA course have been given the password to access the facility," said Ratna Priya, an undergraduate student of history at Magadh Mahila College. "Now with free wi-fi facility, all students will be able to access the facility."

Engineering colleges are more advanced in providing wi-fi connectivity to students. NIT-Patna has been providing wi-fi facility for over four years. The institute is installing local area network line at hostels for high-speed Internet connection. The government planned to launch the facility in February, but it was postponed owing to the prevailing model code of conduct because of ensuing legislative Council elections in Bihar.