Malpe beach in Udupi district, one of the main tourist attractions in southern Karnataka, has become the first beach in India to have Wi-Fi connectivity.

The facility will be available to tourists free of cost for 30 minutes at any time of the day during their visit, an official release said.

Udupi MLA Pramod Madhwaraj launched the 24x7 facility at a function at the beach on Sunday.

He said the duration of free Wi-Fi access would be extended later.

The service is being provided by BSNL, supported by the Centre's Digital Drive Initiative.

Madhwaraj said the Malpe beach committee had spent Rs. 80,00,000 for beach development works last year. Work on road development had also been taken up at a cost of Rs. 5 crores over the years, he said.

Google India and Indian Railways' arm RailTel on Friday announced the availability of free high-speed public Wi-Fi service at the Mumbai Central station. To recall, the public Wi-Fi project for Indian Railways was announced back in September when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Google headquarters in Mountain View.

The search giant in an emailed statement on Friday said that it will expand the free public Wi-Fi network to 100 of the busiest railway stations in India by the end of this year, and eventually expand to 400 railway stations. Next in line are stations in Allahabad, Patna, Jaipur, and Ranchi. The Google RailWire public Wi-Fi service will be accessible by Wi-Fi enabled mobiles.



Written with inputs from PTI