Richa Sharma By

NEW DELHI: Keeping its Railway budget promise to provide high speed Internet facilities to passengers at railway stations, the Railways has launched Wi-Fi Internet services at the Bangalore city railway station making it the first station in India to have such facility.

The high speed Wi-Fi Internet facility to rail passengers was promised in the union Railway budget by Union Railway Minister D V Sadananda Gowda earlier this year and the launch of Wi-Fi at Bangalore station is a pilot project after which it will be extended to other railway stations of A1 and A category across India.

There are over 100 such stations and stations like Chennai Central and Trivandrum Central are also among the list of these stations.

The Wi-Fi facility would be available to the passengers on their mobile phones free of charges initially for a period of 30 minutes. For usage beyond 30 minutes, the user will have to purchase scratch cards, which will be made available at the help desks. Those would be priced at `25 for 30 minutes and `35 for one hour and would be valid for 24 hours. Additional browsing time can also be purchased online using credit or debit cards.

Gowda recently inaugurated the facility and dedicated the service for passengers and said that it will be of great help for the commuters at Bangalore City Railway station to stay connected and surf Internet on the go. The Wi-Fi facility is being provided by RailTel Corporation of India, a PSU of the Railway Ministry. RailTel has been mandated to provide Wi-Fi facility at A1 & A category stations and Bangalore is the first such stations on the list as a pilot project. Railways is also working to provide internet facility in selected trains.