Digital India chugs on rail track: WiFi available at 45 rural stations in Telangana, AP

SECUNDERABAD: Soon all major railway stations in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will have WiFi, according to railway sources.
As per railway board’s direction, South Central Railway (SCR) provided internet access in 45 stations— 25 in AP and 20 in Telangana — in fiscal 2017-18. RailTel Coproration of India, which is working on the pan-India WiFi project in tandem with Google, took up the installation.It may be recalled that WiFi works are already on in 54 ‘A’ and ‘B’ category stations.
In Telangana, Medchal, Cherlappaly, Malaipet, Akkannapet, Gollapalli and Jankampet have the facility. In AP , Gunadala, Duggirala, Mangalgiri, Krishna Canal, Nuzvid and Pellaprolu now have Wi-Fi.
Gollapalli station on the Secunderabad-Mahbubnagar section recently got a digital facelift with WiFi and two computers.
“Internet access will help villagers and students to surf government service sites and websites of educational institutions,” said Arun Kumar Jain, divisional railway manager of Hyderabad.
In a letter on Feb 27, Harish Pawaria, director, telecom, of railway board, asked the chairman and MD of RailTel Corporation to provide WiFi facility to all ‘C’ category stations.
“Work is ongoing to bring all ‘C’ category stations of SCR under the free internet project,” said an official of Rail-Tel. There are 12 ‘C’ category stations in Secunderabad division, while nine such stations fall under Hyderabad division.
The project kicked off in 2016-17 with five ‘A1’ category stations.