Title - Bizarre payment rule

Some things never change. One of them is the bill payment system at the BR Singh Railway Hospital in Sealdah. For some strange reason, the hospital charges have to be paid at counter number 17 of Sealdah railway platform instead of at the hospital. Even more surprisingly, instead of a receipt - the kind normally issued by hospitals - a railway ticket is handed out as an acknowledgement of payment.But why this peculiar rule? No one has a clue. One possible explanation is that when Baba Ramrick Singh, the first Indian Railway Agent and the then acting GM of Eastern Bengal Railway (EBR), established a small health unit near Sealdah railway station in 1934, railway platforms were perhaps the only means of collecting cash payments. But today, BR Singh Hospital that started off with just 36 beds is one of the best equipped railway hospitals in India with 461 beds and catering to a whopping 63,000 patients.And there's nothing to inform first-timers about the bizarre rule. And, at counter number 17, people have to queue up with regular train passengers to make their payment.