COUNTLESS cups of coffee and pacing the platform are passe. As the city’s roads and traffic make it necessary to leave a considerable time-gap to board a train or receive someone, passing time on the station is only going to get easier.
Aimed at increasing passenger satisfaction, the Ministry of Railways has introduced yet another amenity at Pune Railway Station—a swanky new Railtel Cyber Cafe.
Situated on Platform 1, the cyber cafe‚ has 14 computers and is currently being run as a pilot project. ‘‘The cafe‚ was opened on July 31 on an experimental basis and is functional from 8 am to 10 pm,’’ said cafe‚ incharge Amar Nath. After garnering the response, the 1 giga byte-per-second broadband Internet facility will be operational round-the-clock, said railway officials.
Established in September 2000, Railtel Corporation of India Limited—a public sector undertaking, it is a 100 per cent subsidiary under the Ministry of Railways—was set up to commercially utilise the Railways’ communication assets that were lying idle.
Central Railways (Pune division) Public Relations Officer Y K Singh said, ‘‘The cyber cafe is a part of the drive to provide passenger-friendly amenities for rail-users and outsiders.’’
‘‘The land for the cafe was provided by the Railways in February. Internet facilities will be provided at a cheap rate on coupon-basis, and will cost Rs 12 for 30 minutes and Rs 23 for an hour. The coupons, if unused, can be utilised at any other station,’’ he added.
As part of the plan, Railtel will augment and modernise the existing infrastructure to provide communication facilities for commercial purposes to the railways while Tata Indicom will be the service provider.
Meanwhile, the competition on the platform is building up as the railway station already has a private 24-hour cyber cafe‚ handled by Comesum, the fast-food joint in the station premises.
For P N Ritesh, who works with a multinational pharma company in Mumbai, the cyber cafe‚ came as a surprise. Reaching the station to board the Indrayani Express after finishing his work early, he spent a happy hour e-mailing his friends. ‘‘I reached station much before the departure time and was thinking how to spend time,’’ he said. ‘‘I would have never imagined that I would find a cyber cafe‚ in the station premises with good downloading speed.’’
Elsewhwere in the country
THE Indian Railways will soon have similar cyber cafes in over 180 locations in the country. While the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) will service 68 locations, the rest will have Tata Indicom as their service provider. VSNL’s cyber cafe‚s have come up at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gorakhpur, Asansol and Jhansi over the past month, said VSNL Deputy General Manager (Corporate Communications) S Ravindran.