While the centre government is making news with its Digital India initiative, the West Bengal government has gone ahead and launched their own Digital Kolkata initiative. West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that Kolkata will be fully WiFi enabled by mid-April.
The CM tweeted yesterday, “Delighted to announce that #Kolkata will become India’s first fully Wi-Fi enabled metro city in the next 2-3 months. Park St from Feb 5.” The WiFi services will be provided by a private operator and the rollout will start at Part Street from February 5.
The WiFi services will be rolled out in phases to Kolkata’s 144 municipal wards and the city is expected to be fully WiFi enabled in two month’s time by Bengali new year, that’s mid-April. The party’s spokesperson Derek O’Brient also took a dig at Centre’s Digital India initiative tweeting, “Let others talk about Digital India. We just delivered Digital Kolkata.”
According to sources at Trinamool Congress, the CM wanted to do something which would be perceived as a game changer. The CM also wants to change the people’s perception of her government being passive and corrupt to progressive. A Trinamul leader commented, “With Wi-Fi service, the party will be able to bridge the divide and disconnect with urban youths, something that BJP was taking advantage of. Wi-Fi will be Trinamool’s ‘killer app’.”
Reliance JIO will be providing the services for free at the start and once the service gets some traction, the company will introduce price packages with the free time being reduced to 30 minutes a day. The WiFi services will be free for ministers and bureaucrats.
