【Kalakal (2025)】

Google’s audacious plan to connect millions of Indians to the internet is Kalakal (2025)chugging along smoothly.

Google announced Thursday its free Wi-Fi is now working at the 100 busiest railway stations in India. Over five million people in the country latch on to Google's free internet service every month, with 15,000 of them accessing the internet for the first time in their lives every day, the company said.

The growth of what Google described as "the largest public Wi-Fi project in the world" is in line with company's expectations. Earlier this year, at the time of the launch, Google had said it aims to be at 100 railway stations by the end of 2016. Udhagamandalam, a town and municipality in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is the 100th railway station to get Google's free Wi-Fi in India.

The service was available in 52 railway stations as of end of September. The company plans to bring its free Wi-Fi service to over 400 railway stations eventually.

Google is working with state-run ISP RailTel to bring internet connectivity to people. RailTel has optic fibre cable that runs alongside railway tracks covering almost 70 percent of the country.

"We’re really excited about reaching this milestone and it is an incredible feeling to look back and see how far we’ve come since we announced that we were partnering with Indian Railways and RailTel to provide Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations throughout the country," Gulzar Azad, Country Head - Connectivity, Google India said in a press statement.

At its "Google for India" event in September, the company said it has seen overwhelming support for its free Wi-Fi project, and announced a similar project called Google Stations to bring Wi-FI at public places around the world.