Abhijeet Karmakar’s day began at 6am when he left for work, only to return at 6pm. The evening is when the 18-year-old would spend with his books. His hard work fetched him 63.4 per cent in the Higher Secondary examinations.

A 12-hour job meant Abhijeet could not attend classes at Santoshpur Government Colony Netaji Subhas Vidyalaya. Neither did he have the means to attend tuitions.

“I could not attend classes and had submitted an application to the school for permission to write the exams. I had no choice. I had to work to earn a living for the family,” Abhijeet said.

His father had to quit his job five years ago after he suffered a stroke and his mother earns around Rs 3,500 as a domestic help — not enough to feed a family of four and pay the EMI for a loan they took last year to repair the house.

“We live in a room with an asbestos roof and a brick wall. Last year, we got the wall plastered and had to take a loan of Rs 40,000 for that,” said Abhijeet, a resident of Maheshtala.

Abhijeet’s monthly earnings of around Rs 4,000 are spent on the electricity bill, cooking gas, his brother’s school fees and his own education.

His work involves delivering books or documents to schools. “The office is in Gariahat and I have to travel by bus, collect the books and documents and take them to schools. The organisation I work for also conducts exams in schools and I have to collect the answer scripts,” said Abhijeet, who took up the job after Madhyamik.

Back home in the evening, he would devote time to studies. But not all evenings were free either as he worked for a caterer during the wedding season — a job he took up when he was in Class VIII.

“There were financial difficulties at home and I had to take up responsibilities,” said the teenager who scored 70 in English, 53 in Bengali, 51 in accounts, 56 in business studies, 65 in costing and taxation and 73 in commercial law and preliminaries of auditing.