The project was announced by Prime Minister in September.
The high-speed free Wi-Fi internet facility is now available at 6,100 railway stations across the country, RailTel said on Tuesday. "The milestone of 6,100 stations with Wi-Fi coverage was reached today (Tuesday) with the commissioning of Wi-Fi facility at Ubarni railway station (Rae Bareli district, UP) in Lucknow Division of Northern Railway," the statement by RailTel noted.
Google had started the Station as a five-year partnership with the Indian Railways and RailTel in 2015 to provide fast, free WiFi in over 400 stations by mid-2020.
The Railways launched the Google's free Wi-Fi service at Vijayawada, Kachiguda and Raipur stations.
Most of the markets it is now looking at in hopes of gaining the next billion internet users have demographics similar to that of India.
With these launches, the service is now live and available to users at 15 stations across the country.
RailWire - the retail Broadband distribution model of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU of Railway Ministry, is involved in distribution of Internet bandwidth through WiFi.
Railway passengers would soon have access to movies, television content, music videos and audio tracks as RailTel and media group Eros International have come together for providing entertainment services to travellers.
RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, a telecom and IT wing under the ministry, has selected the four railway stations for providing wi-fi connectivity. Within the next couple of weeks, passengers will be able to use their laptops at these stations, said senior officials of RailTel. The move is aimed at providing high-speed internet connectivity at railways stations. RailTel also plans to install wi-max facility to provide connectivity to remote railway stations at a later stage.
Passengers in 200 railway stations across India will soon be able to recharge their mobiles, pay electricity bills, fill up Aadhaar and Pan card forms and even file taxes with help from Common Service Centre (CSC) kiosks to be set up by RailTel. The scheme has been operationalised in partnership with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited' (CSC-SPV) and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, RailTel said in a statement. The kiosks will be run by village level entrepreneurs (VLEs).
Close to 5 lakh passengers travelling via the New Delhi railway station, the busiest in the country, will now be able to connect to the internet through the Wi-Fi service, which was launched at the station.
'We have filed our draft red herring prospectus for a floating IPO for a net offer size of 86.6 million shares.'
The project will eventually be rolled out to cover 400 railway stations across India
Modi said the aim was to turn India's villages into smart economic hubs and connect our farmers better to markets, making them less vulnerable to the whims of weather.
Pichai is in India along with eight Google vice-presidents, including those for Search, YouTube, Maps, and Android among others.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is expected to announce a slew of initiatives for select Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains in the coming rail budget, including access to on-board free Internet and Direct-to-Home (DTH) services.
Railtel has entered into an agreement with US-based Pronto Services, which will create facilities at 50 railway stations through Wi-Max technology.
Aiming to provide seamless state-of-the-art communication network, RailTel - the telecom arm of railways - will launch Railwire, a high capacity broadband service, in rural and remote areas of the country.
This would be the first visit to India as Google CEO.
Google announced a new Wi-Fi platform called Google Station, a video app called 'YouTube Go' and an offline feature for Chrome web browser and faster loading in Google Play on 2G network
The railways is expecting a revenue of Rs 1,84,820 crore during the current financial year (FY17).
Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major's use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks. The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities with Jio. The Jio tie-up is expected to bring down its telecom bill by at least 35 per cent from this financial year.
Apart from the Google team led by AI scientist Manish Gupta, the company will also partner with the research community across the country to focus on tackling challenges in fields like healthcare, agriculture, and education.
From educating people about the internet, connecting far-flung areas with a high-speed net, promoting entrepreneurship, building start-up incubators, women empowerment, to even running a voter registration campaign, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism, Facebook and Google have done it all for the government.
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com reports from the Google For India event in New Delhi.
Pichai will visit India accompanied by the heads of various Google business units
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances