SHILLONG: Touched by a news report published in The Shillong Times which highlighted the plight of migrants not receiving ration from fair price shops, a group of people decided to step in and address their needs.
In a statement on Sunday, Jivesh Kandpal, an officer from Geological Survey of India, Shillong office said he along with his friends Shampa Halder, Rohit Gaur, Aakash, Hemant, Harvinder, Puneet, Ravi from Indian Army’s MES and another person who wants anonymity, have arranged dry ration to nearly 150 families during the lockdown.
Kandpal contacted The Shillong Times office and he got in touch with Amita Sangma, a social worker. Kandpal and his colleagues arranged money from their own savings and with help from friends which was then used to buy rations. It was handed over to Sangma who ensured that they were distributed to the needy families. They also gave rations to the local Dorbars for further distribution.
“It is not easy to find needy families directly, so we thought going through local Dorbars was a good idea”, they said.
However, they did not stop at that. They provided ration to the social worker for the second time who in turn distributed the ration to the needy.
For the third time, they distributed nearly 30 packets of ration directly to families while 50 others were given to the local Dorbar for further distribution. Each packet contained dal, potato, onion, milk, cooking oil, bathing soap, washing soap, black gram while some packets had rice as per the need of the family.
“Since we are government servants, we personally have limited capacity to do such work. But we have tried to reach out to maximum people with maximum items,” they said.
One of them refused to share his picture because he believes in donation through anonymity.
“The best donation is anonymous. Your left hand shouldn’t know what your right hand is doing,” he said.
With the lockdown ending, the good samaritans hope that no one else will be in a situation where they need their help. ‘But if the people need assistance, they will try their best to help’, they said.
“We are also thinking of providing cash assistance to one or two persons who might need help to get back on their feet. We might not be able to help much but every drop in the bucket counts,” said the good Samaritan who chose to remain anonymous.