: Over a month-and-a-half after it was announced, a pilot project of the AAP government to provide free Wi-Fi at a market in North West Delhi is yet to take off.
According to the plan, users at the Sant Nagar market in Burari would have been able to download 50MB data every day free of cost. Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC), an advisory body of the government, had roped in a vendor of the market to provide the facility for three months.
However, problems in connectivity posed a problem. “The market is scattered, and the signals were weak. The service provider told us that there was no penetration of the internet as the walls of the shops and houses are thick,” said Sanjeev Jha, the area MLA.
Even the traders of the market confirmed that apart from the announcement, nothing happened on ground. “Wi-Fi never reached the market,” said Vinay Pandey, who runs a bookstore at the market.
Government officials were hoping that if the response was good, they would move the project further.
However, AAP’s Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri, who is handling the Wi-Fi project for the entire city, said that the problem was with the non-availability of fibre cable network. “We are trying to bridge the gap in supply,” he said. He added that they would relaunch the project by the end of this month.
Free Wi-Fi in the Capital was one of the much-touted promises of AAP before the elections. In September last year, before the Delhi University elections, the government had announced that they would start with colleges. But nothing as such happened, and even AAP’s student wing lost the polls.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, after presenting the budget in March, had said that the government would evaluate pilot projects and come up with a more efficient Wi-Fi system in the city. “The government has started pilot projects for Wi-Fi in buses, outdoor Wi-Fi in Burari, and some NDMC areas,” he had said.
The pilot project at a market in Burari did not take off due to poor internet connectivity
