The city is likely to get 1,000 WiFi hotspots this year, in addition to the five currently operational — MG Road, Sector 29, Sirhaul village, Sadar Bazar and Gurugram railway station.

The upcoming hotspots will cover 349 bus queue shelters operated by the Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMCBL), all government buildings including Vikas Sadan, district courts, civil hospital and police stations, as well as other important locations in the city such as Metro stations and key traffic intersections, officials of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) said.

On March 5, the GMDA issued expressions of interest (EOI) for “Establishment, Operation & Maintenance of WiFi Hotspots” in areas under its jurisdiction. V Umashankar, CEO, GMDA, said the empanelment process will be completed in three to four months and that the WiFi hotspots will be rolled out by the end of the year.

Umashankar also said the empanelled service provider would have to undergo a pilot project by successfully providing WiFi services at 100 bus queue shelters, which are yet to be finalised.

“Depending on the quality of the service they provide initially, they will be awarded more locations,” he said.

The hotspots will be free for the public, who will be able to use 1GB of data with a speed of 10mbps.

Each hotspot will be able to support 500 users simultaneously, so a total of 5,00,000 citizens can be connected to free public internet at the same time.

On January 29, a visit by Hindustan?Times found that of the five existing WiFi hotspots, barring the one at the railway station, which was maintained by the Indian Railways, none were functional. The remaining four hotspots at MG Road, Sector 29, Sirhaul village and Sadar Bazar are maintained by a private company on behalf of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram.

The city-wide WiFi connectivity project will be supported by the GMDA’s network of fibre optic cables, which are currently being installed by three private companies across the city.

All 358 key intersections identified by the GMDA, such as Rajiv Chowk, Subhash Chowk, Atul Kataria Chowk, Rapid Metro and the Delhi Metro stations, will be fitted with WiFi connectivity, according to the GMDA’s project details.

These upgrades to the city’s digital infrastructure, which also include the creation of an Integrated Command and Control Centre and other ‘centralised processes’ to monitor surveillance, water and traffic infrastructure, is part of the GMDA’s Smart City vertical, according to officials.

However, Gurugram is not officially listed in the National Smart Cities Mission, having missed the cut in 2016. Citizens have blamed this on inadequate amenities, such as frequent power outages, shortage of water supply, traffic crisis, poor public transport, ineffective drainage and poor waste disposal.

Umashankar on Wednesday, however, clarified that Gurugram was no longer looking to complete with other Smart Cities and is “competing with itself”. “We are, in fact, miles ahead of the other two Smart Cities in Haryana (Faridabad and Karnal) in terms of the infrastructure developments that have happened in the last year.”

First Published: Mar 07, 2019 06:43 IST