97.25 Terabytes/month data being consumed at 6,071 railway stations that have free Wifi: Govt

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Approximately 97.25 Terabytes per month of data is being consumed at 6,071 railway stations that have free WiFi services, the government told the Parliament on Friday.

The WiFi service is available to the general public free of cost for the first half-an-hour of any day and on chargeable basis subsequently.

"WiFi services have been provided at 6,071 Railway Stations across India so far,” Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated in his written response to a question in Rajya Sabha.

"The total data usage on these stations is of the order of 97.25 Terabytes per month approximately,” he noted.

The minister said no separate funds have been sanctioned by Ministry of Railways for the free WiFi scheme.

"Funds amounting to Rs 27.22 crores have been sanctioned by Department of Telecom (DoT) under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for provision of WiFi services at 193 railway stations in rural areas,” he noted.

WiFi services at 1,287 railway stations — mostly A1 and A category stations — are being provided by RailTel Corporation of India Limited, which is a PSU working under the Ministry of Railways, he mentioned.

"In the remaining stations, WiFi services have been provided under corporate social responsibility (CSR)/charity projects of various firms for which no capital expenditure is incurred,” Vaishnaw said.