India's relentless push for digital now reaches the hinterlands

A digital wave is currently sweeping India. And none other than its government is the biggest change-agent.

After actively pushing for a cashless economy last year, Modi's 'Digital India' bus is now reaching the smallest and sleepiest towns of the country.

About 7,000 railway stations in India's hinterlands will now be turned into digital hotspots, the Economic Times reports.

These Wi-Fi-enabled stations will also serve as hubs for ordering and receiving goods from e-commerce portals. That gives Amazon a reason to smile and an opportunity to add more zip codes in its delivery ambit.

India has a rich optical fiber network which is being leveraged to set up these centers. It is a direct push for internet adoption in rural and semi-rural areas from where the next phase of internet growth is expected.

Currently, there are 450-460 million internet users in India, the second-largest in the world after China. And a chunk of them are from the big cities.

Several railway stations in big, busier locations, are being provided free internet by Google which runs "the largest public Wi-Fi project in the world" in India.

Last December, Google announced that 100 railway stations were on its free Wi-Fi network and another 100 would be added this year. About 6 million new users were availing the service every month.

India's sprawling railway network, the largest in Asia, reportedly ferries over 23 million passengers daily – equivalent to moving the entire population of Australia – connecting more than 7,172 stations. And this was two years ago.

Hence, railway stations are a critical access point for the government to influence and impact millions of lives with internet connectivity.