Toiling in hazardous conditions, they somehow managed on a meagre weekly wage with little left for bringing up their offsprings. With daybreak, workers used to hootfoot it or cycles to their working fields and with the falling of dusk the dog-third workers returned with a bunch of firewood tucked in the carrying rack. With the historic verdict the timber industry has come to a grinding halt leaving some 20,000 people engaged in this industry directly or indirectly in a lurch. For years now, the concerned authorities have taken no measures for their rehabilitation. Strangely, however, the ban order dating back to December 17, 1996 has worked as a blessing in disguise for the timber mafias since the latter, are carrying on with smuggling the forest produce.