Over 500 locations across East Delhi will be made high-speed wi-fi zones by the end of this year allowing access to free internet till a pre-determined limit daily, the Delhi government announced today.

Providing free wi-fi across the national capital was one of the key poll promises of ruling Aam Aadmi Party.

According to the government, the free internet service aims to fulfill the minimum internet requirements of Delhites. The implementation of free Wi-Fi in Delhi will be carried out by Department of Information Technology (DIT), which is the nodal agency for the project.

The government has also decided to lay down a common fibre-optic network across the city to make it possible for Delhiites to access the web in "gigabit speed", Khetan said.

The government plans to soon float a tender for the services.

"The tender will have details of free data usage limit. But at this point, I can say that the benchmark would be average data usage by an individual per day as defined by TRAI," Khetan said.

He said the Public Works Department is the nodal agency for the optic-fibre project, which he said was an essential pre-requisite for a smart city. Work has started in this regard, he added.

Such high-speed internet was imperative towards bringing "definitive changes" in the areas of education, health, power, water, public transport and security, Khetan said.

Providing free Wi-Fi across the national capital was one of the key poll promises of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party.

The key features of the Delhi government's policy include:

* The project will be rolled out in east Delhi area first.

* As per a report from telecom regulator Trai regarding the average consumption of internet, daily free limit per user shall be decided.

* There will be 1,000 hot-spot zones with three access points within 571 identified locations of east Delhi area initially. These hot-spots will cater to around 1,20,000 people at any given moment. Khetan said that 3,000 more access points will be added if needed