State owned telecom player Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited today launched Free Wi-Fi Facility at Udwada Village, Valsad District, Gujrat under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana adopted by Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon’ble Minister for (I&B) and Textiles. The facility was launched by Sh. Manoj Sinha, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications and Minister of State for Railways in the presence of Smt Irani on the occasion of Navroz.Speaking on the occasion, Smt.Irani said, “Under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana Rs.16.48 Lakh is allotted for carrying out Wi-Fi by BSNL in Udwada Village. With the launch of Wi-Fi service today in Udwada Village, population of 6000 citizens in village as well as surrounding area will be benefited. Citizens of Udwada and surrounding area will be able to use Unlimited Internet Data and Udwada Village has become Digital Village. Udwada village has been adopted by me under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana. This is vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister for strengthening the villages and make effort for extending benefit of digital India to the last miles.”
Manoj Sinha appreciated the efforts of BSNL for extending Wi-Fi facility to Udwada village. He said on this occasion, “BSNL is also deploying 35,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots on PAN India basis to improve the Broadband penetration with 2G/3G mobile data Wi-Fi offload solution. Under this project till date more than 7700 Wi-Fi hotspots have been installed.”Shri Anupam Shrivastava CMD BSNL said that two Hotspots with 17 Access point have been installed at Udwada village. He said that he has come to know that Udwada is a town in Gujarat, renowned for its Zoroastrian Atash Behram. This place of worship is the oldest still-functioning example of its kind, and has established Udvada as a pilgrimage center for Zoroastrians the world over. BSNL is undertaking the project for providing 25,000 Public Wi-Fi Hotspots at Telephone Exchanges of BSNL in rural areas using BSNL fiber as per the MoU signed between BSNL and USOF. Till date BSNL has provided Wi-Fi at more than 2500 rural telephone exchanges.BSNL has provided more than 7700 Wi-Fi Hotspots on revenue share basis through various partners namely QuadGen, Trimax & GOIP.