delhi

Updated: Jul 25, 2019 05:46 IST

With 4,791 more stations to cover in less than 100 days, RailTel is on a mission to complete the work of providing Wifi at the railway stations across the Indian Railways network, according to the managing director of the public sector undertaking who added that he was hopeful of meeting the “ambitious” deadline.

In two-and-a-half years, RailTel has covered 1,606 stations, including Mumbai, Howroh, Patna, Shimla, Ranchi, Surat and New Delhi.

RailTel is implementing two of the six Indian Railways projects that are part of 100-day agenda of the Union government. The project other than providing WiFi networks, is to test a new signalling technology that will improve safety and increase capacity by reducing the distance between two trains.

“We are working along with Railways and Tata Trust [on the WiFi project], and equipment installation has started. Of course, it is an ambitious target [October 15] but our teams are working day and night,” Puneet Chawla told Hindustan Times.

According to data from RailTel, the total WiFi user logins across 1,606 stations in May was 235 million. The total unique users were 119 million, and a total of 8,781.30 TB data consumed that month.

The data showed that stations in Tier 1 cities such as Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai registered a greater number of user logins and data consumption than their Tier 2 counterparts such as Gaya, Solan and Jodhpur. Howrah station alone saw 49 million user logins in one month - the highest in the country.

“Internet in India is largely mobile Internet with a high percentage of users on 2G and 3G, while RailTel sought to bridge the digital divide by providing free and fast Wi-Fi, which also bridges the experience divide where millions of users experience fast access to the Internet for the first time,” Chawla said.

The other project that RailTel is implementing for Indian Railways is modernisation of the signalling system on four sections. The system overhaul includes Automatic Train Protection System with a Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based Mobile Train Radio Communication System (MTRC). These will gave the provision of Electronic Interlocking (indoor) wherever required. This will help railway to depart train immediately after another unlike the current practice where the next train is always kept a station away from another. The signaling will help train drivers to communicate while train protection system will help in preventing the accident.

“The selected company will have to start the trial within eight months after getting the tender and they need to complete the trail run within 24 months of getting it. The cost of trial run would be around R1,600 crore, which includes training for drivers, and an upgradation of 500 locos that have been identified for installation of extra equipment,” Chawla said.

This Modern Train control system project will be implemented on 165 RKMs (route kilometres) in the Renigunta (RU) – Yerraguntla (YA) section of the South Central Railway, 145 RKMs in the Vizianagaram (VZM)-Palasa (PSA) section of the East Coast Railway, 155 RKMs on the Jhansi (JHS) -Bina (BINA) section of the North Central Railway, and 175 RKMs on Nagpur (NGP)-Badnera (BD) section of the Central Railway.

These are some of the busiest routes on Indian Railway with heavy traffic. Automatic Train Protection System and LTE based MRTC will improve safety, help reduce congestion in these rail networks and increase line capacity, improve punctuality. It will also help to increase average speed of trains.