The salt producers in Orissa have urged the state government to treat the salt industry at par with the agriculture sector and provide all necessary facilities to them as being extended to the agriculture farmers.
About 20,000 people are engaged in salt production in the coastal districts of Ganjam, Puri and Balasore. Around 30,000 tonnes of salt is produced from 5,000 hectares of swampy land in the state annually. Sources pointed out that major salt producing states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have given the agriculture status to salt farming and provided sops like cooperative loan and electricity at concessional rates to this sector as applicable to the agriculture farmers.
“Unfortunately the salt farmers in our state are deprived of such benefits though they have been clamouring for the same for last several years”, said Trilochan Sahu, a leading salt farmer. The salt farmers in Orissa are availing cooperative loan at the rate of 12 percent as against 7 percent for the agriculture farmers. Similarly they also pay higher tariff for electricity.
The salt farmers are using electricity to run the motors to pump sea water into their salt farms. Moreover, the government does not intervene to fix the minimum support price (MSP) of salt unlike different agriculture products.The salt farmers and the salt cooperative societies are facing problem to sell their produce due to the absence of MSP for salt. Last year, the farmers had staged agitation against Jayshree Chemical Limited (JCL), a leading producer of caustic soda, demanding that the company should procure its salt requirement from the local area at higher rates. Sahu said, the salt industry, which was once pride of Ganjam district, will collapse soon if the government did not come forward to solve their problems.