Earlier this week, a RailTel official had announced that the Patna railway station made the most of the free Wi-Fi with most of it being principally used to watch and download porn. The embarrassment has made the Railways rethink the move of putting up the service on premium trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express, reports India Today.
Sources in the Rail Ministry said the gross misuse of internet facility on railway stations has left the officials in a quandary whether to go ahead with similar experiment on trains.
If travellers start watching porn while travelling in trains, it might not just make other passengers uncomfortable, it would also lead to monetary loss for the Railways.
“A rough estimate suggests that people are using at least 15 times more data at railway stations that they would use on their cellular networks on a daily basis. This is also evident from the misuse of internet on various railway stations. Most of users have been using railway internet for downloading porn clips, YouTube videos and other mobile apps,” said a senior Railway official to India Today, on conditions of anonymity.
The Railways is exploring viability of internet service on stations and trains. “We may also consider making Wi-Fi available for a charge. Passengers who need to use the internet service could buy the certain amount of data on payment of charges,” a railway board official said.
Earlier this week a RailTel official had said, “More than any other railway station in the country, where free Wi-Fi service was launched, the Patna railway station is on the top in the country for using internet search, particularly search for porn sites.” He added that the statistics came from RailTel’s record of data use by its users.
