New Delhi, Dec 8 (IANS): Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu Monday inaugurated Wi-Fi broadband services at New Delhi railway station and said that such facilities will be extended to the other stations and also in running trains.

According to the minister, the Wi-Fi facility will be provided at 75 A1 category stations within a period of next 12 months.

On trial basis, the facility will be launched at Agra, Ahmedabad and Varanasi by end of Dec 2014 and at Howrah, Mumbai and Secunderabad by Jan-2015.

The Wi-Fi facility is provided by Railways undertaking RailTel and is free for first 30 minutes.

Prabhu directed the IT arm of the Railways to develop an application for the safety of women passengers.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said that expectation of railway users are quite basic like cleanliness in stations and trains, quality in catering and security and safety.

"Indian Railways have been taking lot of measures to improve the facilities of the railway users. The world is seeing the changes in various field and the railways should also keep pace with the latest technology," Prabhu said.

The raailways' said that Wi-Fi which is powered by RailWire will give maximum speed of 1 mbps and is available free for a initial period of 30 minutes.

The facility is being executed by utilising gigabit ethernet network using optic fibre cable (OFC) which is connected to 60 wireless access points commissioned strategically at all 16 platforms including concourse area.

The railways added that the total cost of the project is Rs.50 lakh and an amount of Rs.16 lakh will be spent annually to run the facility.