India, Nov. 15 -- LUCKNOW At King George's Medical University (KGMU), efforts to secure an early entry into the new OPD begin long before sunrise. With no formal system to manage early-morning queues, many patients and their attendants spend the night outside the out patient department (OPD), guarding plastic bottles and chalk-marked circles that decide their place in the queue.

This unusual method of placing bottles to "reserve" a slot and encircling handwritten names on the floor has now become a daily routine. Team HT visited the spot on Wednesday and Thursday nights and found dozens of patients sleeping beside their makeshift markers, ensuring no one tampers with their position before registration begins.

Jai Ram, 48, who travelled ...