  We present optical spectra of 45 intermediate mass Herbig Ae/Be stars.
Together with the multi-epoch spectroscopic and photometric data compiled for a
large sample of these stars and ages estimated for individual stars by using
pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks, we have studied the evolution of
emission line activity in them. We find that, on average, the H_alpha emission
line strength decreases with increasing stellar age in HAeBe stars, indicating
that the accretion activity gradually declines during the PMS phase. This would
hint at a relatively long-lived (a few Myr) process being responsible for the
cessation of accretion in Herbig Ae/Be stars. We also find that the accretion
activity in these stars drops substantially by ~ 3 Myr. This is comparable to
the timescale in which most intermediate mass stars are thought to lose their
inner disks, suggesting that inner disks in intermediate mass stars are
dissipated rapidly after the accretion activity has fallen below a certain
level. We, further find a relatively tight correlation between strength of the
emission line and near-infrared excess due to inner disks in HAeBe stars,
indicating that the disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars cannot be entirely passive.
We suggest that this correlation can be understood within the frame work of the
puffed-up inner rim disk models if the radiation from the accretion shock is
also responsible for the disk heating.
