Educational tour to Darjeeling Department of Economics

Name of the Activity: Educational Tour to Darjeeling

Category of the Activity: Extension Programme

Organising unit: Department of Economics

Duration of the activity: 01 – 05 June 2023

No. of Participants: 29 students and 05 faculty

Objective of the activity: To acquaint the students with the real world and take them beyond the limits imposed by a pre-set syllabus.

Brief description of the activity: The tour started from Howrah station on the afternoon of 01 June 2023. After a night halt at Siliguri, the group of 29 students and 5 teachers reached Darjeeling on 2 June 2023. The first halt in Darjeeling was at Bose Institute, Darjeeling. The premises were built by the founder, Acharya J.C. Bose in 1920 and houses a museum and a research centre. A detailed tour of Acharya Bose’s house that has been converted into a museum was given by Mrs Yashodhara Yadav, Junior Laboratory Assistant. The students were also explained some of the seminal experiments conducted by Bose. Mrs Yadhav also explained the recent experiment being conducted by the institute on the level of air pollution in and around Darjeeling. On June 3, 2023, the group visited Tiger Hills at dawn to view Mt Kanchenjunga and Mt Everest. Later in the day the group visited the Makaibari Tea Estate at Kurseong. The students were explained the different stages of tea processing – from the gardens in the foothills of the Himalaya to the auction house in Kolkata. On the final day the group moved back to Siliguri via Simanta on the Indo-Nepal border and Mirik Lake. On 5 June the group reached Howrah in the afternoon.

Outcome of the activity: An excursion initiates students, particularly those who are not used to hostel life, to the joys and vagaries of community living. The department had provided each student with exercise books and stationery to pen down their thoughts regarding the tour. It is evident from these tour diaries that though enjoyment with friends was an agenda, they were not oblivious to their surroundings. While they could appreciate the scenic beauties, they could also identify the infrastructural bottlenecks that could hamper the tourism industry in and around Darjeeling in the near future. Concern about the excessive traffic jam, pollution, changing weather conditions, unplanned constructions, etc. that are affecting both tourism and the tea industry in Darjeeling finds mention in their observations. Thus one can see that the application of coursework to real life experience was an important and welcome outcome of the trip.