Patna: The Patna Medical College has restarted the Wi-Fi facility that was non-functional since July.

The premier medical college restarted the Wi-Fi facility on Thursday under the central government's project, which is supported by National Informatics Centre (NIC), confirmed PMC principal Dr Vijay Kumar Gupta.

"The Wi-Fi connection can be accessed in the college's library, non-clinical departments, principal's office and parts of medicine department. The speed of the Wi-Fi connection is 1 GB per second," said Gupta, adding that he had pinned hopes that the facility would be soon available in the clinical departments and the whole hospital.

"The Wi-Fi connection has been restarted under the Union government's programme but we are expecting Wi-Fi connection to be made available in the whole hospital soon under the chief minister's seven resolves programme. Our college was selected in the chief minister's programme to be made Wi-Fi equipped but due to some planning related problems, it has not been started yet. If this starts, it would be very beneficial because doctors would be able to share the medical reports of their patients with their colleagues, and the pathology and other reports can also be shared in no time by pathologists with the patients. Often these reports are handed late to the patients which further delays the whole treatment procedure. The medicos would also be benefited if Wi-Fi is available in the hospital," said Gupta.

Among state-run medical colleges, only Patna Medical College has Wi-Fi facility. At All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna, however, medicos are enjoying the facility for a long time now.

However, other medical colleges in the state capital, including the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) and Nalanda Medical College (NMC), are still bereft of the facility, as are the medical colleges in the districts. IIT-Patna, NIT-Patna, BIT-Patna, and Magadh Mahila College in the state capital also provide free Wi-Fi facility to students.

As part of chief minister Nitish Kumar's promise under the seven resolves, free Wi-Fi facility has to be made available at 308 educational institutions in 29 universities. Each institution will get net connection at 10MBPS speed. The budget for the project is around Rs 190 crore.

"Though we have Internet facility on our mobiles, we face problems in browsing because of connectivity. We often don't get mobile connectivity in our department and library. The Wi-Fi connection would be useful for us," said a third-year MBBS student.

"We are excited. Now we can exchange resource information from anywhere within the campus," said a second-year MBBS student.