Students in Kargil struggle with poor internet services, officials say efforts on to improve connectivity

KARGIL: Amid reports of students walking long distances outside their villages in search of a mobile network for online classes, authorities in Kargil are hopeful of providing uninterrupted internet connectivity to the people in the coming months across the border district in Ladakh.

Dozens of students from different villages, including Shimsha and Karkit in Drass, have to travel three kilometers daily to a hill along the Srinagar-Leh national highway to ensure their presence in the virtual classrooms due to the closure of schools in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

A video of one such group from Shimsha is making the rounds on social media with students, both girls and boys, seen sitting on a roadside gravel hill busy attending their classes under the open sky.