Of all the things in the Railway Budget, something that stands out is unmistakeably the announcement by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu about including ‘B’ category stations also in the list of those that would be given the facility of Wireless Fidelity, Wi-Fi that is.
Earlier, it was said that only those in the category of ‘A1’ would be given this advantage and as for the South Central Railway’s jurisdiction, only Hyderabad, Kachiguda and Secunderabad stations in Telangana, and Vijayawada and Tirupati enjoy that status.
But interestingly, ‘B’ category stations across SCR number 34, including 12 in Telangana and 22 in AP. The list in the newly-formed Telangana State includes Adilabad, Bhadrachalam Road, Kamareddy, Lingampally, Mahabubnagar, Mahabubabad, Nalgonda, Ramagundam, Sirpur-Kagaznagar, Tandur, Vikarabad and Basar.
The stations in AP where youngsters with smartphones or laptop-slinging techies will soon be found are: Adoni, Annavaram, Bapatla, Begumpet, Bhimavaram, Chittoor, Dharmavaram, Gooty, Gudivada, Kakinada, Kavali, Machilipatnam, Mantralayam, Nandyal, Narsapur, Nidadavolu, Palakollu, Singarayakonda, Srikalahasti, Tanuku, Yerraguntla and Dhone.