diff --git a/src/templates/template-text-classification/data.py b/src/templates/template-text-classification/data.py
index 87850c67..233eff87 100644
--- a/src/templates/template-text-classification/data.py
+++ b/src/templates/template-text-classification/data.py
@@ -42,10 +42,12 @@ def __len__(self):
 
 
 def setup_data(config):
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     local_rank = idist.get_local_rank()
 
     if local_rank > 0:
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#
 
     dataset_train, dataset_eval = load_dataset(
         "imdb", split=["train", "test"], cache_dir=config.data_path
@@ -61,9 +63,10 @@ def setup_data(config):
     dataset_eval = TransformerDataset(
         test_texts, test_labels, tokenizer, config.max_length
     )
-
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     if local_rank == 0:
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#
 
     dataloader_train = idist.auto_dataloader(
         dataset_train,
diff --git a/src/templates/template-vision-dcgan/data.py b/src/templates/template-vision-dcgan/data.py
index e1ddf1e5..78503100 100644
--- a/src/templates/template-vision-dcgan/data.py
+++ b/src/templates/template-vision-dcgan/data.py
@@ -12,7 +12,9 @@ def setup_data(config: Any):
     ----------
     config: needs to contain `data_path`, `train_batch_size`, `eval_batch_size`, and `num_workers`
     """
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     local_rank = idist.get_local_rank()
+    #::: } :::#
     transform = T.Compose(
         [
             T.Resize(64),
@@ -20,10 +22,11 @@ def setup_data(config: Any):
             T.Normalize((0.5, 0.5, 0.5), (0.5, 0.5, 0.5)),
         ]
     )
-
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     if local_rank > 0:
         # Ensure that only rank 0 download the dataset
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#
 
     dataset_train = torchvision.datasets.CIFAR10(
         root=config.data_path,
@@ -38,9 +41,11 @@ def setup_data(config: Any):
         transform=transform,
     )
     nc = 3
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     if local_rank == 0:
         # Ensure that only rank 0 download the dataset
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#
 
     dataloader_train = idist.auto_dataloader(
         dataset_train,
diff --git a/src/templates/template-vision-segmentation/data.py b/src/templates/template-vision-segmentation/data.py
index bc286793..f9c22020 100644
--- a/src/templates/template-vision-segmentation/data.py
+++ b/src/templates/template-vision-segmentation/data.py
@@ -177,14 +177,17 @@ def prepare_image_mask(batch, device, non_blocking):
 
 
 def download_datasets(data_path):
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     local_rank = idist.get_local_rank()
     if local_rank > 0:
         # Ensure that only rank 0 download the dataset
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#
 
     VOCSegmentation(data_path, image_set="train", download=True)
     VOCSegmentation(data_path, image_set="val", download=True)
-
+    #::: if (it.use_dist) { :::#
     if local_rank == 0:
         # Ensure that only rank 0 download the dataset
         idist.barrier()
+    #::: } :::#