Does Railway Platform Serve as a Path to Education?

"We study together and engage in group discussions. This helps us in cracking the exams," says student Karan Kumar, who travels 60km every day from Nauhatta area to come to study at the station. "I catch a local train to reach here at 6pm and return by 10pm. It has helped me a lot. I recently got a job in the railways," as reported by BBC news.

Another student Rahul Kumar said "Though most of the students here come from their one-room rented accommodation in the town, many come from nearby villages, travelling up to 50-60km daily."

These students of the station (station-wale students) prepare for their exams methodically. They collect money to make photocopies of question papers and then try to solve them in a stipulated time like they do during exams, said another student Rahul Kumar.

"Sometimes, students who have studied here in the past and cleared the exams come to guide us." They say each year, about 100 station-wale students qualify for different government jobs, mostly in the railways and banks.

Niranjan Kumar Srivastva, who arrives at the station at 9pm and studies through the night, said "Our seniors say that one of the students here even cleared the prestigious civil services examination."

"About 10-15 of us study the whole night and leave in the morning," he says. "I aspire to clear a government exam for clerks," says Niranjan whose elder brother Chitranjan Kumar Srivastava, a former platform student, is a fire engineer.

The students say there is no other option and they get just three to four hours of power supply in the town. While, on the railway platform, they get both uninterrupted power and support from colleagues which help them excel.