Agartala, April 1 (TIWN): While scientists, doctors, health workers, senior officials are busy fighting the novel COVID-19, a small trader, a poverty stricken woman and two sisters in Tripura donned the hats of good samaritans to help those struggling to meet their basic needs amid the lockdown.

Sujit Deb, a poultry trader in northern Tripura, last week delivered food and other essential commodities to poor tea garden workers.

Another good samaritan, a 39-year-old woman from a poor family, was seen making face masks from her old clothes and distributing these items among the needy free of cost.

Deb became the saviour for hundreds of tea garden labourers. He also distributed 5 kg rice, 500 gram dal (pulses) and soap each to 200 families, who used to survive from the wages they used to earn as workers in a tea estate in the Mayachari Gram Panchayat area in Dhalai district.

In the aftermath of the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 54 tea estates along with thousands of small tea gardens in Tripura had shut down operations leaving over 25,000 to 30,000 labourers, who are daily wagers, at their wits’ end.

The majority of these thousands of labourers have got very little to eat in the past several days.

“Four days back I have given rice, dal and soap to 200 families. I am trying to provide similar such essentials to these families again and other households who are in distress after the closure of their tea gardens,” Deb told IANS. Deb alongwith his friends travelled around 8 km from his house at Mayachari village in two-wheeler, carrying the relief material.