New Town Forum and News, a residents' group, distributed 300 masks at a novel coronavirus awareness programme organised by Housing Infratructure Development Corporation at Biswa Bangla Convention Centre on Sunday.

“Masks are selling in the black. We received a request to make masks last evening. We bought cashmed cloth from Burrabazar and got three tailors to work all night to produce these masks,” said Ankur Roy Chowdhury of New Town Forum and News, who runs a nursing home in Bongaon.

Everyone attending the programme received a mask while the remaining ones were handed over for distribution among patients at the New Town health centre.

The medical officers from the state health department praised the masks which can be reused after a wash.