Tamil Nadu salt makers urge govt for policy change
Salt manufacturers in Tamil Nadu have urged the union government to re-implement the zonal marketing scheme for the commodity which was scrapped in 2015. They claim that TN based salt manufacturers have been incurring losses ever since the zonal marketing scheme was abolished as Gujarat based corporate salt manufacturers are pushing everyone out of the market.
Under the scheme, the country was divided into three zones for selling salt. Producers from one zone could not sell their salt in another which ensured that locally produced salt was consumed. However, this was abolished in 2015 to create one national market.
In Tamil Nadu, salt pans exist over 45,000 acres with an annual production of 30 lakh tonnes and which employ about 60,000 people. Tuticorin, Vedaranyam and Ramanathapuram districts are the major salt producers in the state. According to Senthil Vairakkannu, secretary, small and medium scale salt producers association from Vedaranyam of Nagapattinam district, the salt producedbyTNwassoldasfaras West Bengal when the zonal marketing scheme was in place. “It is not the case now,” he says.
“Of the 45,000 acres of salt pans, small and medium scale salt producers own about 30,000 acres. The remaining salt pans are owned by corporate companies like Chemplast Sanmar, GHCL, Sahayamatha salts and so on. However, the corporates are doing good,” Senthil said.
“TheTN produces30lakhtonnes of salt per year. Around five to six lakh tonnes (worth around ₹50 crore) remain unsold in market because we have lost markets in Hyderabad, Bhuvaneshwar and Kolkata. Despite our efforts to reach out, the response we get is that our salt quality is not up to the mark and price is high” Senthil said.
While 45 per cent of the salt goes into the production of edible salts, 40 per cent of the salt is used for fertilisers and the remaining 15 per cent is being sold to poultry farms, dyeing and leather industries, he added. Since Gujarat based industries like Tata salts, Jaguar salts, Grasim salts are using modern mechanised techniques, their salt is good in quality and preferred in markets.
“With the modern mechanised techniques, it takes just ₹250 for producing one tonne of salt for Gujarat manufacturers. However, in TN it takes ₹450 for producing one tonne of salt. We still use manpower. Since the production cost is less for Gujarat salt makers, they are selling per tonne of salt at ₹400 in the market. But we have to sell itat ₹550 per tonne,” said V Rajendran, another office-bearer.
When asked about the difficulty to replace people with machines, Rajendran said, “Small pans cannot use machines. If a farmer has some 300 acres of the pan, he can use machines. But all these 30,000 acres are being owned by 18,000 people.”
They office bearers also point out they do not have any state support. “Gujarat has a separate ministry for salt, the TN has no department for it, leave alone a ministry. There are nine major ports to export salt in Gujarat. In TN, only Thoothukudi port is used to export salt,” Vairakannu says.
When contacted M C Sampath, Minister for Industries Tamil Nadu said, “We are taking steps to sort out the issue. We are in talks with the union ministry for commerce and industry. We will discuss the issue in the secretariat with our department’s managing director this Saturday.”
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