Abstract: Distance education institutions in general and IGNOU in particular have been playing a key role towards democratization of higher education. However, there is a long way to go to provide higher education to everyone who is eligible and to reach every corner of the country to enhance access through distance education systems. This paper attempts to trace the strengths and limitations of distance education in meeting the access - one such issue is uniform delivery methods followed irrespective of geographical conditions and enrolment figures. With the help of a case study, i.e., the state of Uttaranchal the access and evident issues have been analysed at length in this paper. Two alternate models of delivery for distance education programmes in geographical difficult terrain of Uttaranchal have been presented; and these may be useful to planners intending to extend educational access to remote and hilly areas elsewhere.