Seventy-three school students from six districts of Himachal Pradesh just got a front-row seat to India's most dynamic city — and their Chief Minister wants the country to know about it. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday, 28 October 2026, shared details of an educational tour to Mumbai organised under the Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA) through Samagra Shiksha, Himachal Pradesh, calling the children's gratitude 'heart-touching.'

73 students, six districts, one city of possibilities

The tour brought together 73 meritorious students from across six districts of the state, including 12 students from Hamirpur district alone. Through their time in Mumbai, the students were exposed to facets of science, history, culture, and modern infrastructure — experiences that are rarely accessible from the hill-state classrooms they come from.

CM Sukhu described the tour as an opportunity for students to observe 'innovations up close' (नवाचारों को नजदीक से देखकर), gaining a deeper understanding of modern development, technological progress, and a changing global landscape. The sentiment was warm and unambiguous: these children came home different.

RAA and Samagra Shiksha: the policy engine behind the trip

The Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan, launched by the Ministry of Education in 2015, was designed specifically to build scientific temper and a hands-on innovation mindset among school-going children. It slots neatly inside Samagra Shiksha, the integrated central school-education scheme approved in 2018-19 that merged three earlier programmes and explicitly funds exposure visits, innovation components, and experiential learning initiatives.

For a state like Himachal Pradesh — mountainous, geographically dispersed, with many students in government schools far from urban centres — inter-state exposure tours represent a rare equaliser. A student from Hamirpur who has never seen a metro skyline or a modern science facility walks away with something no textbook can fully replicate.

What Sukhu's government says it is building

The Chief Minister was direct about the intent: 'Our government is committed to honing students' talent and empowering them with knowledge and skills.' (हमारी सरकार विद्यार्थियों की प्रतिभा को निखारने तथा उन्हें ज्ञान एवं कौशल से सशक्त बनाने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है।) The register was celebratory but grounded — a governing promise tied to a concrete programme with real faces behind it.

Such tours, when they work, do more than broaden horizons. They quietly reframe what a student believes is possible for herself. That, more than any infrastructure metric, is the long-term wager the state government is making.

If Himachal Pradesh keeps expanding the reach of RAA-linked exposure visits, watch for whether district coverage widens and whether the programme's outcomes feed into the state's Samagra Shiksha annual reports — the clearest signal of institutional commitment beyond the headline.