Despite issues, national capital’s free Wi-Fi scheme is still a hit
NEW DELHI: Minutes after the clock struck ten, 11-year-old Anamika Mahato finished an online mathematics class with her school teacher on the mobile phone of her father, Akhilesh Mahato. She fiddled with the phone for a while, scrolling through few applications she said she downloaded on her own, played Candy Crush for a few minutes, and then handed over the phone to Akhilesh, as he finished his breakfast and left for his shop – a makeshift set-up in east Delhi’s Kondli neighbourhood where he sells hand bags.
The next class would be history, scheduled at 11am. Anamika borrowed her mother’s phone, and quickly opened a WiFi log-in page. By now, she said, she has learnt her mother’s Aadhaar number by heart – a mandatory requirement for logging in to the page that enables usage of internet service under the Delhi government’s free Wi-Fi scheme, which was rolled out in December 2019. The Wi-Fi device is installed right outside the Mahato’s one-room residence at a slum cluster in Patparganj.
“Mobile internet packages are easily available these days. We get 1 GB free data every day with the prepaid mobile plan we subscribe to. But with schools switching to online classes because of Covid-19, the 1 GB data lasts for a maximum of two online classes. The days she (Anamika) has more than two classes, we have to use the government’s Wi-Fi facility,” said Mithila Mahato, Anamika’s mother.
So far, the government has set up 10,561 Wi-Fi hotspots across the city – of which 2,208 are in bus stands that witness high foot fall, and the rest are located in markets and residential areas, including large numbers of slums and unauthorised colonies that are densely populated. The service was launched in December 2019, around the same time when the central government too cleared a proposal to set up public Wi-Fi access network interfaces throughout the country. The panIndia project is yet to materialise though. By March 2020, Delhi turned out to be the first city in India to have such wide public Wi-Fi network, said officials in the chief minister’s office.
However, there are a large number of complaints regarding failure to connect to the hotspots despite being located close to it and poor speed even if one manages to connect.
Mukesh Kumar, who owns a roadside eatery in south Delhi’s Khirki Extension locality, is not as lucky as Mahato in terms of equal access to the free internet service. Kumar’s 13-year-old son, Ankit, and nine-year-old daughter, Aarshi, are both students of a government school in Hauz Rani. The two have been attending online classes for around a year now but Mukesh’s attempts to connect to the Wi-Fi device near his home at a slum cluster in Shekh Sarai locality yielded no results.
“I finally gave up and purchased three SIM cards. Now I get 1.5 GB free data in each which helps my children attend online classes. But that costs me more than ₹750 per month, which is difficult in such times when business is poor. The Wi-Fi often did not connect, and when it did, at times, the quality was so poor that the line got disconnected in the middle of the class,” said Kumar.
A senior government official explained, “When the initiative was launched, people doubted if it would be of any use in the age of cheap mobile data. We were the first city to have such a system functional. Till then, there were public WiFi systems available in airports, railway stations, etc but not in slums, markets and residential areas. In the last two years, several cities have launched such projects, which include Bengaluru and Hyderabad. In Delhi, user traffic for the public Wi-Fi system has immensely increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most hotspots are more often operating in full capacity now. That is why many often fail to connect and even if they do, they face speed issues.”
Each individual Aadhaar number registered under the initiative is entitled to 15 GB internet data per month. In a single day, they can use upto 1 GB. The system works through a network of hotspots. Each of them operates well in a 50m radius. The government has capped the maximum number of users at a point at 200 for each hotspot, said the official.
“When too many people are registered at the same time, the speed drops to 1 Mbps. Web pages are too heavy these days and 1 Mbps services do not work at all. It is hardly any different from no connectivity at all,” said Aneesh Yadav, a 22-year-old frequent commuter on the 623 DTC bus route who tries connecting to the free Wi-Fi system at the ITO bus stand.
HT reached out to several government officials but they did not share numbers of total complaints received since the launch of the service in December 2019.
Despite its shortcomings in terms of accessibility, the system is helping several families, especially in the age of the pandemic.
Vinod Jha, 45, was a factory worker who lost his left arm in an accident 12 years ago, and for a decade, his family’s primary sources of income are a makeshift shop he runs near along the railway tracks in west Delhi’s Mayapuri, close to the industrial area where he once worked, and the salary of his wife who works as a domestic worker in neighbouring colonies.
The family resides in the slum cluster along the railway track which has a Wi-Fi hotspot and their 15-year-old son, Sachin, who is a student in a government school, uses it for online classes.
Over the last one week, HT interviewed several users of the service. Most of them have smartphones with data packs for internet service and they often use the government’s Wi-Fi over and above the service they pay for.
Most of them said that their usage of the free Wi-Fi service has increased with the Covid-19 pandemic. What they do with the free internet service includes online classes of their children, surfing social media, reading news in vernacular languages, watching news capsules on YouTube, job searches, and connecting with their relatives in villages over WhatsApp calls.
Deepak Kumar, a resident of the slum cluster close to the industrial area in West Delhi’s Naraina neighbourhood, said his mobile internet gets exhausted with WhatsApp calls throughout the day with his family who were forced to move to their village in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur because of the pandemic.
“In the village, people sleep early. So, in the late evening hours, I feel lonely. I am used to living with my family in this house. Then I often connect to the Wi-Fi device in the next block and watch a movie on YouTube,” said 40-yearold Kumar, who likes watching Hindi-dubbed versions of Telugu and Tamil movies on YouTube.
However, his neighbour, Mantoo Jha, who too is a factory worker, often gets irked when movies get stuck mid-way. “There is no point living close to a Wi-Fi device. The service is poor. I cannot even do a video call with my family back home (in Bihar’s East Champaran district). I had to get an additional SIM,” said Jha.
Earlier this month, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal chaired a review meeting and directed officials in the public works department to continue with the scheme, giving it a fresh push to improve the service.
The public works department is currently preparing a detailed action plan, regarding identification of areas where new hotspots should be installed and the scale of the second phase of the drive which is likely to be launched in another few months, to improve connectivity issues, said the senior government official.