Connecting the Unconnected is a monthly column by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) that explores how technology can drive inclusion and governance in India. The column focuses on how the digital divide impacts communities differently and advocates for equitable, citizen-informed solutions that ensure technology empowers rather than excludes.
In the upper stretches of Uttarakhand’s Darma Valley, when disaster strikes — or when it simply rains — you don’t reach for your phone. You try to reach a slope, a boulder, or a patch of rock, which local residents call Jannat (heaven). It’s the one place where your phone might catch a fleeting bar of signal.
It’s here that teenagers climb after 11 pm to check exam results, where women rush to send a PDF before the signal fades again, and where farmers confirm whether their long overdue MNREGA payments have arrived. In this precarious terrain, restricted by landslides, cloudbursts, and broken roads, Jannat is the last thread of connection.
The villages of Chhalmachhilason, Kalika Baijan, Galati, and Dar, located in the upper valleys, lose signal whenever the winds howl or the snow piles high. These are not occasional blackouts. These are structural absences.
“It’s called Jannat because it feels like heaven when you get signal there,” says Reshmi, 19, a college student from Galati. “We only go when it’s important — to download a school form, or sometimes a government notification.”
Devansh, a resident of Chhalmachhilason, explains the daily ritual: “To get an alert from the bank, you have to be near the market. Jio [mobile service provider] works sometimes. BSNL [government telecom provider] barely. If you’re deep in the village, you wait for the network to come — like waiting for rain.”
The Uttarakhand Geology and Mining Department and the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology have identified Dar and Chhalmachhilason as vulnerable to ground subsidence. To recharge a mobile phone and make it usable, one has to spend nearly Rs 300 on a data plan and travel 40 km to the nearest town, Dharchula.
This article draws from fieldwork conducted by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in Dharchula Block under the Uttarakhand Wireless Aid Community Network Project, supported by the Internet Society Foundation. It documents the lived experiences of communities striving to achieve aspirations and access basic services while navigating digital blackouts and physical isolation.
How socio-spatial vulnerability shapes digital exclusion
The problem goes beyond poor telecom signals. It is rooted in histories of state neglect, environmental risk, and socio-political marginalisation. These villages are home to indigenous Kumaoni communities — such as the Rungs, Rajis, and Bhotiyas — groups historically reliant on nomadic pastoralism and seasonal migration across the Indo-Nepal border.
Unlike Uttarakhand’s tourist-favoured zones, these border villages remain largely disconnected due to harsh terrain, poor road infrastructure, and a lack of sustained public investment. Climate variability has disrupted traditional farming cycles. Disasters like landslides and rockfalls are seasonal events now. And every time they hit, the first casualties are always the mobile network and the water drains.
Infrastructure is not rebuilt fast, or sometimes not at all. Authorities, wary of repeat damage, have restricted toilet construction under the Swachh Bharat Mission in some of these areas. Locals bear the cost of rebuilding homes, drains, and toilets after every monsoon.
In such conditions, finding non-agricultural livelihoods is a necessity. But access to welfare schemes, government benefits, and wage work is now largely digital. In a district where ration, pension, MNREGA payments, and even basic healthcare updates depend on mobile apps and Aadhaar-based alerts, the absence of signal means an absence of access.
“You finish a week’s work and then you wait,” says Devansh. “Sometimes the payment message comes, sometimes not. The only way to check is to go to Dharchula paying Rs 200 for the travel, and if the roads are closed, you may need to stay the night.”
The price of a message
This uncertainty is not limited to wage work. Ration distribution, pensions, scholarships, health notifications — all hinge on reliable internet. Even if a payment message sneaks through, accessing the funds means another journey to town, another Rs 200 spent, and often a long queue at the bank.
Rajesh, Devansh, and Anju from Chhalmachhilason have made this trip more times than they can count.
“For online tasks like taking printouts, applying for jobs, or recharging data — things that might take a minute in Delhi — you have to travel two hours to the Dharchula market,” says Devansh. “If it doesn’t get done that day, you’re stuck there overnight.”
A typical conversation around MNREGA payments in these villages goes like this:
Interviewer: How do people receiving MNREGA wages get their payments?
Devansh: It gets transferred to our accounts. But to check the balance, we must visit the bank.
Anju: And it depends on the network. Jio sometimes works. The others — nothing.
Rajesh: If you’re near the market, a message might come.
Leisure in the time of lag
But digital exclusion here is not just about work. It shapes relationships, leisure, and how one passes time. In Galati, the internet is most accessible after 11 pm, when the valley quiets down and competing signals thin out.
Ashu, a teenager, says: “We have to step out of the house to get a good signal. But after 11 pm, it improves. That’s when we watch videos or download things.”
Gangotri, 64, watches her grandchildren trade sleep for data. “Look at them,” she says, shaking her head. “They’re spoiling their sleep just for a signal.”
Leisure here is shaped by geography. Streaming a video or chatting with a friend depends on where you live and what time it is. Phone calls are rationed by hills and hours.
Nurturing aspirations, mediating access
School is a 2-km walk that includes an adventurous pulley ride across the Kali River. College? An 8-km hike through the jungle. Dharchula, with its banks, hospitals, and photo shops, is seen as a world of opportunity.
Residents report having BSNL and occasional Jio connectivity, but only enough to make calls. In rare pockets, one can load a Google search — after considerable buffering.
Interviewer: What happens when it rains?
Satya: There is no network. Not even for a call.
Priya: During rains, we don't have electricity too.
Interviewer: What about mobile phone networks and internet on other days?
Satya: On other days, we are able to make calls. But the internet is very slow and hardly works. There are spots where the speed is faster.
Interviewer: Which locations?
Reshmi: There is a spot in the upper region; we call it Jannat (heaven) because we get good speed there. We don't go there that often. We go when we have to download important documents, such as a PDF file or for some school work… It is far from my home.
Interviewer: What is your net pack per day? Are you able to finish it?
Rahul: It's 1.5 GB/day. It never gets exhausted because we don't have internet to watch online videos or reels on Instagram or Facebook, despite having accounts.
Earlier, Dar relied on a satellite phone set up in 2010 to serve the community, until the Union Government withdrew its subsidy. Before Jio entered the scene three years ago, people depended on travellers to carry messages between villages. Even now, Jio operates via a satellite system capped at 100 devices. But with over 500 trying to connect, the system often crashes. In Galati, closer to Dharchula, the signal is slightly better — but even there, one must walk 4-5 km toward the main road to catch the BSNL signal.
These are not isolated inconveniences. They are everyday negotiations with fragile infrastructure, environmental risk, and policy neglect. With the increasing digitalisation of welfare, education, and work, villages like these remain at the far margins of both connectivity and state attention. Without real investment in resilient, context-sensitive digital infrastructure, and a recognition of the unique socio-spatial challenges of Himalayan life, the promise of a digitally connected India risks becoming another empty slogan.
In the Darma Valley, Jannat is not a place on a map. It is a reminder — of the distance between policy and people, between signal and service, between survival and silence.
Raina Ghosh, a Doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University, works as a Consultant for the Research & Advocacy Division at the Digital Empowerment Foundation.
Dhiraj Singha, a Doctorate from Ambedkar University, Delhi, works as an Assistant Manager in the Research & Advocacy Division at the Digital Empowerment Foundation.
Suruchi Kumari, a Doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University, works as a Consultant for the Research & Advocacy Division at the Digital Empowerment Foundation.
Views expressed are the authors’ own.