Abstract
Being the queen of hills Darjeeling used to mesmerize its visitors and its beauty finds place even in the heart of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. It is one of the most famous hill stations for a quiet long period of time. Along with natives a good number of foreign travelers are also seen in Darjeeling city and surroundings throughout the year. The economy of Darjeeling, a district and a hill station in North Bengal, is dependent on tourism to a large extent and over the past few decades the city has witnessed a large scale infrastructural development centering the construction of hotels and resorts mainly by corporate groups and companies. On the one hand this kind of growth has meet up the needs of rising number of tourists and has boost up the local economy but on the other hand it has surely affected the environment adversely. Large numbers of migrant labourers are brought from adjacent districts like North Dinajpur to fulfill the requirement of workers for completing the time bound projects taking place in the region. The living condition of these in-migrants is not up to the mark and they are also adding pressure in the region that is already overwhelmed by the influx of tourists. The entire process is dominated by commercial interests and there is hardly any concern either for local residents or for natural environment.
In this context the study aims to focus on the environmental exploitation of Darjeeling due to over tourism and to explore the conditions of the in-migrants working in the construction site of the town. The paper emphasizes the necessity of careful planning and management to ensure long-term sustainability, well-being of local communities and the decent standard of living for the migrants to tackle the double-edged sword of development resulted from the expansion of tourism.