Here's a reputation no one will envy openly. Within a month of its launch, Patna railway station sees the most amount of Wi-Fi used by any railway station in India; and its not to check online reservations. The maximum searches were for porn sites, a railway official told a television channel on Monday.
"More than any other railway station in the country where free Wi-Fi service was launched," an official of RailTel, a mini-Ratna public sector undertaking (PSU), said, "the Patna railway station tops the list for using internet search. More than anything, porn sites have been watched and downloaded by the people at Patna railway station."
The mind boggles how one can watch stimulating clips in a public place, while waiting for a train, but that belt of the country does not earn its reputation for being one of the most libidinous sectors of the country on idle talk. Here's a perspective: Patna is one of the busiest stations with more than 200 trains passing through it daily.
After Patna, Jaipur railway station is second to use internet search, followed by Bengaluru and New Delhi. "It was revealed from our records of use of data by users. We don't know yet whether commuters at these stations are watching pornography, or something more wholesome," the official said.
Patna station is the first one in Bihar to have Wi-Fi facility, and judging by its popularity, other stations should be clamouring it for it soon. It falls under Danapur division of East Central Railway.
Interestingly, Wikipedia is the second most used website on the station, after YouTube, so we can only assume that porn leaves a large number of people looking for answers. However, if they are going to look for them at an unverified, crowd-sourced encyclopedia, it's no wonder that sexual activity is still so confusing for so many Indians. Reassuringly, some people do use it to download apps, and movies too.
If you plan to go to Patna for this express reason and don't like to delay gratification, the good news is that RailTel is increasing the speed to 10 gigabytes from the current one gigabyte soon.
Free Wi-Fi service was launched last month in Patna, along with two more railway stations – Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and Ranchi in Jharkhand. To date, free Wi-FI facility has been launched at 23 railway stations in the country. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said the government plans to introduce the service at all major railway stations in the country in the next three years.
"By this year-end, free Wi-Fi facility will be launched at 100 major railway stations. We will achieve our target of 400 stations in three years. Once in place, it will be the largest public Wi-Fi system in the world," Prabhu said.
Last year, Google India and Indian Railways joined hands to introduce high-speed Wi-Fi network at 400 stations in the country.
