Travelling through the congested lanes of the MG Marg also known as the Main Road would become slightly less irritating as commuters’ sour experiences of careening on the busiest road of the capital would be mellowed down by providing free Wi-fi Internet access for the first 20 minutes.
The initiative sanctioned by the Ranchi Municipal Corporation envisages using existing infrastructure as well as the under construction high-mast lED towers on the Main Road from Albert Ekka Chowk to Sujata Chowk. The free access would cease after 20 minutes. The municipal corporation has allowed Bharti-Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone and another telecommunication company to use their infrastructure on rent.
“They will put their machines on high-mast at Albert Ekka Chowk and will put up routers on light poles on the street. There is no user charge however the company would pay us `12,000 for using high-mast tower,” said PRO of RMC, Naresh Kumar Sinha.
Additionally, the four telecommunication companies have also been asked to maintain the lED lights on the high-mast and also to bear the electricity usage charge. The service providers would also pay rent of `800 per pole for using the light poles to extend the Internet connectivity on the one-and-a-half kilometre stretch.
Meanwhile, the RMC’s initiative is being projected as a step towards transforming Ranchi into a smart city and catapulting it into league of cities with uninterrupted Internet connectivity.
“This is one of the components of smart city and it has to be done by the RMC with the help of private companies. The proposal is in initial stage and later on other issues like security of the network and preventing its misuse will be our focus,” said Deputy Mayor of RMC, Sanjeev Vijaywargiya.
The proposal moved by telecommunication service providers would bring other prominent streets under the cover in later phases and as part of the proposal the companies have also expressed their desire to provide free Internet access at Government offices in Ranchi.