Vapi set to be first Wi-Fi city, BSNL approached for service.

Walking on the development path, the industrial town Vapi will become the state's first Wifi city in coming months. The project will be carried out under PPP model by Vapi Nagarpalika.

Announcing the project, Valsad District Collector Dr. Vikrant Pandey said, 'Keeping in mind the future needs of the people, we are planning to go ahead with making the entire city Wi-Fi enabled. A market survey had been carried out by the district administrative officials.' The approximate population of the city is over 2.25 lakh. To start the work, the officials divided the city into three sections, the work will start from Vapi GIDC section and later, Gunjan residential and commercial areas will be covered and in third phase the other areas left behind, said the district administrative officials.

The officials had carried out meeting with the top officials of BSNL, for the installation of routers on the existing BSNL towers in Vapi. Meetings are also going on with other companies holding towers. The officials also had made presentations to the state government few days ago to get green signal.

Pandey said, 'The project would be under tri party model which consist of Vapi Nagar Palika, BSNL and private players. At the primary level the approximate cost of the entire project will be over Rs. 3 crore. For the project expenses, we researched and found that we have to put more money in first phase and later on revenue will be generated which will be used for the other phases.'

Under this project, the agreement will be done with the internet service provider and talks are under progress. He further adds, 'In coming years the internet users will definitely increase and through such wifi connectivity they will benefit a lot. The service providers will have to do the installation and maintenance.' He added, 'At present the project is at primary level and we are making all possible efforts to make it perfect. We have done a detail study of the wifi system in Singapore. We have targeted to start the project in one year.'


THE INDIAN EXPRESS