Does Railway Platform Serve as a Path to Education?

Bangalore: Students in the electricity starved state of Bihar assemble every night under lamp posts at a railway station to study and prepare for examinations. Every day when the sun sets and electricity goes away in their homes, hundreds of students head for the platform number one to study, reported Amarnath Tewary for BBC News. Many of them are too poor to afford coaching schools.

Oblivious to the passing trains and the rush of passengers, they sit in circles under the lamp posts at the extreme end of the platform. They all credit their success to this Sasaram railway station in Rohtas district.

One student sits in the middle, throwing questions from exam books, while the others respond, answering loudly so that everyone can hear. Most of the students at the station prepare to compete for clerical jobs in the Indian railways and state-run banks, which are two of India's biggest employers.

Saroj Kumar, 23, said "Students have been coming here for the last 10 years. We come here to study because of frequent power cuts outside," as reported by BBC news. "We try to be around as long as we can."

Bihar, like many other states, faces serious power crisis. At 122 units, the state’s per capita electricity consumption is about a sixth of India's per capita electricity consumption of 778 units.

Patna-based economist Nawal Kishore Choudhury said "The state virtually runs on [back up] generators."