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Bhubaneswar: After Mumbai Central, Bhubaneswar railway station became the free Wi-Fi enabled station in the country Sunday. Similar service at Puri and Cuttack railway stations will be available within a year.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu accompanied by minister of state for Railways Manoj Sinha launched the high-speed Wi-Fi service, which will benefit 1.4 lakh visitors at Bhubaneswar station daily. The service is being provided by RailTel–the telecom arm of the Indian Railways and Google India.
Launching the service here, Prabhu said similar service would be made available at Puri railway station ahead of annual Rath Yatra in July this year while the service will be available at Cuttack railway station by the year-end. The project will eventually be rolled out to cover 400 A and A1 category railway stations across India.
The launch of free Wi-Fi service at major stations would boost the government’s digital India programme further, he said. ‘‘We have said 100 stations will get Wi-Fi service this year and we will do it. We do not make false announcements,” he announced.
Giving a list of projects announced by him earlier, Prabhu said, “We have commitments and all the projects will be taken up on priority basis. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) will be set up jointly by state government and the Centre for development and implementation of railway projects in Orissa.”
Noting that Orissa received Rs 719crore in 2012-13 and Rs 812 crore in 2013-14 rail budget, Prabhu said the allocation for the state was substantially raised by NDA government and this year it is Rs 6,000crore.