A full-fledged ‘comprehensive’ postgraduate degree course in tea science is set to be introduced for the first time in India by North Bengal University, located in the state of West Bengal. The first session for the course would begin from August 2012. Earlier, the university had been offering a one-year postgraduate diploma in tea management since 1995.
Only 20 lucky undergraduate students from botany, chemistry, microbiology, or mathematics would be enrolled in the first batch of the two year course. Admission process would begin soon after the publication of under graduate results.
Some of the subjects, which are to be introduced in the postgraduate degree course in tea science, are:
1. Tea cultivation
2. Manufacturing and Packaging
3. Soil Study
4. Tea Trade
5. Flavour Technology
6. Labour Laws and
7. Computer Application
Sources from the varsity added that the course would stress more on practical aspects than on the theoretical one, and the focus would be on visits to tea gardens, soil testing, other such outdoor-practical . The course fee would be Rs. 1.2 lakh per student, apart from the grant received from the Tea Board of Rs. 3 lakh per year.
(Source: Department of Tea Management, North Bengal University, West Bengal, India.)