Missed signals slow India's public Wi-Fi ambitions

Despite strong intent and scalable design, India's PM-WANI rollout lags due to poor awareness, industry pushback, and weak business models.

- BY AYUSHI SINGH

More than four years after its launch, India's ambitious public WiFi scheme-the Prime Minister WiFi Access Network Interface (PM-WANI)-has yet to meet its intended goals. Despite its decentralised, licence-exempt model and potential to expand affordable Internet access, the initiative has seen limited adoption, revealing a significant gap between vision and implementation.

Launched in December 2020, PM-WANI was envisioned as a transformative measure to bridge the country's digital divide. The scheme aimed to increase broadband penetration, particularly in rural and underserved areas, by enabling small local businesses- such as tea stalls and grocery shops-to function as Public Data Offices (PDOs), offering WiFi connectivity without requiring a licence. The broader objective was to promote digital inclusion across sectors, including education, healthcare, and e-governance.

Despite a decentralised and licence-free design, PM-WANI struggles due to poor awareness, industry pushback, and a lack of last-mile infrastructure.

At the time of the scheme's launch, India had not yet rolled out 5G services, and WiFi remained one of the most reliable means of accessing the Internet. The government initially set a target of 10 million public WiFi hotspots by 2022, with a longer-term goal of reaching 50 million by 2030. However, as of March 2025, only 278,783 PM-WANI hotspots had been installed-less than 3% of the original target-with nearly half located in Delhi alone.

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