Google has unveiled a project to provide high-speed public wi-fi in 400 train stations across India.

Working in partnership with Indian Railways and RailTel, Google will roll out the connectivity to 100 of the countrys busiest stations by the end of next year – giving it a potential reach of 10m passengers each day, making it the countrys largest public wi-fi network – with the remaining 300 stations following in quick succession.

Connectivity will originally be offered for free, though there are plans to monetise the network in the long term.

The project was announced as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis official visit to Silicon Valley, which saw him dropping in on Google and Facebook, and unveiling a new direct air link between San Francisco and New Delhi, operated by national airline Air India. Its all part of Modis Digital India initiative, an attempt to connect the remaining 1bn Indians who dont have internet access. And, as CEO Sundar Pichai was keen to point out, this is just the latest example of Googles involvement:

“We think this is an important part of making the internet both accessible and useful for the more than 300m Indians already online, and the nearly 1bn more who are not,” he wrote in a blog post. “But it’s not the only piece.

“To help more Indians get access to affordable, high-quality smartphones, which is the primary way most people there access the internet, we launched Android One last year. To help address the challenges of limited bandwidth, we recently launched a feature that makes mobile webpages load faster and with less data, and we’ve made YouTube available offline with offline Maps coming soon. To help make web content more useful for Indians, many of whom don’t speak English, we launched the Indian Language Internet Alliance last year to foster more local language content, and have built greater local language support into our products—including Hindi Voice Search, an improved Hindi keyboard and support for seven Indian languages with the latest versions of Android. And finally, to help all Indians reap the benefits of connectivity, we’ve been ramping up efforts to help women, who make up just a third of internet users in India today, get the most from the web.

“Just like I did years ago, thousands of young Indians walk through Chennai Central every day, eager to learn, to explore and to seek opportunity. It’s my hope that this wi-fi project will make all these things a little easier.”