The Little Rann of Kutch is an unsurveyed piece of land that accounts for 37 per cent of the Gujarat’s total salt production. Here, 3,500 Agariya families spend eight months living in makeshift houses and extracting one of the rarest types of salts, called vadagara crystals.

Zero Connect is an innovatively designed initiative to bring broadband Internet connectivity from far flung locations to different parts of the Little Rann of Kutch through diverse wireless technologies, line of site and unlicensed spectrum — via a specially designed vehicle that comes equipped with LCD screen, tablets, printer, rooftop solar panels, back up batteries, 5-metre tripod-based antenna tower with dish antenna. The dish antenna can rotate at 360 degrees and align with available broadband Internet tower at the periphery of the Little Rann of Kutch. As the van drives around the region, it reaches out to individuals, households, groups, schools, health centres and panchayat ghar, among other institutions, providing digital literacy, digital services and access to wireless Internet connectivity.

The map on the right indicates families and public institutions that have been mapped that have been brought under the umbrella of digital inclusion.