Visitors to Connaught Place can now stay connected to the Internet while they eat, work, shop or just lounge around Central Park as the entire market is now a Wi-Fi zone. Member of Parliament from New Delhi constituency Meenakshi Lekhi launched the service on Sunday evening at an event organised at central park.
The project has been taken up by Tata Teleservices Limited as part of their corporate social responsibility in association with New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).The service was initially supposed to be launched by Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung but the BJP MP took his place instead.
After launching the service, Ms. Lekhi tested the quality of the connection provided by streaming the song ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams on the loudspeaker for the audience to enjoy. The stream was seamless and the representatives of Tata Teleservices cheered along with the hundreds of people that had gathered at the event. The foot-tapping music encouraged others to log on the Wi-Fi and try it out for themselves as well.
The NDMC had launched a pilot project at Khan Market a few months back but the project at Connaught Place had been plagued by delays.
Speaking at the event Jalaj Srivastava, Chairman, NDMC said the Connaught Place project faced challenges as the buildings in the market had very thick walls. Also the sheer size of the market with its various lanes was difficult to cover. The NDMC plans to extend the services to all markets under their jurisdiction soon. Mr. Srivastava hoped that the connection would encourage transparency and help the NDMC be more efficient in delivery of their services.
Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary (Urban Development), Govt. of India who was present at the event explained the ‘Smart City Project’ undertaken up by the Ministry of Urban Development for making 100 Smart Cities across the country. He said that the initiative had been taken by the NDMC under the ‘Smart City Vision’ of the Prime Minister of India.
The Wi-Fi service in Connaught Place is the largest in India. At a time, the service can be availed by 5,000 people with a speed of 512 Kbps. The first 20 minutes (within a 24 hour period) would be entirely free after which scratch cards can be purchased in various denominations in the market. The password for the Wi-Fi will be sent to users via SMS once they login to the hotspot from the Wi-Fi settings.
