When bending the rules deserves praise

On Tuesday, a situation that was a hair's breadth away from disaster became a heartwarming story of a government agency going above and beyond its duty. When hundreds of admission seekers of Rajshahi University (RU) were about to miss their exam because of a train delay, the West Zone of Bangladesh Railway came forward to ensure that they could reach their exam centres on time.

The incident went viral on social media after admission seekers started posting on Facebook to thank the authorities.

Things first went wrong on Tuesday morning, when the intercity Dhumketu Express, scheduled to leave Kamalapur Railway Station for Rajshahi at 6:00am, was delayed by more than three hours.

"As the train left Dhaka at 9:15am, it faced the risk of failing to complete its journey to Rajshahi in six hours if we maintained the schedules of other trains," said Asim Kumar Talukder, general manager of West Zone of Bangladesh Railway.

This meant that admission seekers on the train, whose exam was scheduled to begin at 3:30pm, faced the risk of missing the admission test.

"There were around 700 students on the train who were going to attend the Rajshahi University admission test. So, we alerted all of our stations and headquarters about the matter and decided to give the train a pass, overriding schedules of other trains," Asim Kumar Talukder added.

In the meantime, the railway GM informed the RU vice chancellor, Professor Golam Shabbir Sattar, about the delay and requested him to consider the issue of the train delay.

The train passed through most of the stations on the route with ease, but after reaching Lahiri Mohanpur Station in Sirajganj, disaster loomed once more when the train's engine went out of order.

"The engine issue delayed the train for another 35 minutes," the railway GM said.

Calling for a fresh engine from Ishwardi Railway Junction would take more than one hour. But in the meantime, the Chilahati Express was at a nearby station.

The authorities used the engine from the Chilahati Express to get the Dhumketu Express moving once more.

From Arani station, the train's speed had to be accelerated to 85 kilometres per hour from the normal speed of 65 kilometres per hour, said Asim Kumar Talukder.

The train finally reached RU station at 3:38pm, eight minutes behind the scheduled beginning of the exam.

Following the railway authorities' request, the university authorities made some changes to their rules for appearing at the exams. According to the exam regulations, any examinee who appears at the exam hall after a delay of more than 30 minutes would be denied entry.

"We sent notices to all exam halls to allow entry to admission seekers who travelled by Dhumketu Express," said Professor Golam Sabbir Sattar.

"We did it on humanitarian grounds," he added.

Around 75,000 students from across the country took the admission test for C unit (science group) on Tuesday.

However, the issue drew criticism from some people on social media who did not appreciate the bending of rules.

Responding to the criticism, Professor Sattar said, "The rules are made for welfare of people. We did nothing wrong in making some changes in the rules."

One Salahuddin Neel wrote on Facebook that he saw the RU authority denying entry to some other students who went to the hall half an hour late on that day.

The VC said, "The cases of the students on the train and others who were inside Rajshahi and neighbouring areas are not the same."