Kolkata: Around 400 disabled poor people were made to wait for more than five hours Tuesday before they could get promised tricycles from a union minister -- many fell ill waiting for the dignitary who arrived at the venue much later than announced.

Union steel minister Ram Vilas Paswan was to distribute the tricycles to the handicapped Tuesday forenoon on the 45th foundation day of the public sector MSTC as part of its corporate social responsibility. But the minister's flight was delayed and he could reach here only in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the "lucky recipients" of the largesse had been trucked in to the venue here early in the day without adequate arrangements having been made for them in the hot and humid weather.

The poor were brought in around 9 a.m. while the minister arrived at the venue after 2 p.m. Waiting for hours, many of the physically disabled fell sick. But no doctors were on duty at the venue.

The disabled accused the enterprise as they were brought to the venue much before the minister's scheduled arrival time.

"We were brought here at around 9 a.m. I came here because I was told by one of the local fellows that some money will be distributed for disabled children. But when I came here I was told they are giving tricycles, which is of no use to my child as he can never sit on it," said Rukiya Bibi, mother of a disabled child who came from Barasat.