Kurseong - Land of white orchids doesn’t fetch crowd

KURSEONG, 2 JAN: 'Welcome to Kurseong ~ Land of the white orchid': reads a road sign on one of the bends of the National Highway-55 before it wends its way into the town. Tourists travelling to Darjeeling casually glance at the 'Welcome' sign and continue their journey to Darjeeling.

"Kurseong is just a stopgap town. Who wants to stay here when the Queen of Hills is barely 32 km away," sighed Sudesh Lama, a local youth.

Meanwhile, Darjeeling is in the grip of a festive season with the second edition of the Darjeeling Tea and Tourism festival 2013 going on in full swing. The 17-day festival will end on 5 January 2013 having started on 20 December.

Even though the festival has been devised to cover the entire hills, the rest of the major towns will be organising only a token last few days of the festival while in Kurseong it will start from 3 January till 5 January 2013.

According to sources in the tourism sector, Darjeeling is host to around 3 to 4 lakh tourists and to more than 20,000 foreigners annually while Mirik and Kalimpong accommodate several thousand a year. Sadly in comparison to these three major tourist hubs, statistically the number of tourist flow in Kurseong is just a trickle.

When asked how tourism can be boosted in Kurseong, a senior resident Mr B Chettri said: "It would have been a wise option if the festivity was done entirely in Kurseong as it would have familiarised the town with the tourists visiting the place during the tea and tourism festival. Hence, the festival must  be rotated every year in different location in the hills. Darjeeling has always been the choice of travellers since ages hence Kurseong should now be packaged and presented to the world as well."

A young student, Prashant Rai, proudly says, "Kurseong is also blessed and surrounded by a breathtaking natural beauty and exotic places like Chimney, St. Mary’s Hill, Dowhill, the Balason valley, Giddha Pahar, Rohini and the landmark Eagle’s Crag. It is also interspersed with the world famous tea gardens of Ambootia, Makaibari, Goomti, Singell and Castleton that cradle hundred of small villages in its lap. Isn’t this something wonderful," he said.

However, recently under the aegis of the GTA, led by its chief Mr Bimal Gurung, a plan is on to develop Kurseong and its outskirts, keeping an eye on its huge tourism potential by laying foundation on a slew of projects, including  the world class water kingdom and water theme parks at Beltar, 12 km from Kurseong, the Giddhapahar-Rohini ropeway (5 km) for tourism and the revamping of Rohini (20 km) besides several others.

statesman news service