Houses for salt workers

The government plans to built 50,000 houses for salt workers in the next 2 years under the Namak Mazdoor Awaz Yojna, salt commissionar, minister of commerce and industry, S Sundaresan told Business Standard today.

Sundaresan also told that India salt export in 2005 was 8 million tonnes. He was briefing the media about a two day international conference on 'Salt 2006' that starts Thursday in the city.

Under the housing scheme, the govt will give 90 per cent subsidy in building the houses, whose cost is estimated at 50,000. Sudarshan said, " We will first identify the eligible workers. About 40 per cent of them already have a house. We plan to build 50,000 house in the next two years."

Currently there are about one lakh salt workers in the country.

About 12,000 houses have already been built and another 12,000 will be completed before monsoon.

Out of the total 22.75 cr sanctioned for the Yojna, 10 cr has been spent so far.

The global conference will also focus on increasing the country's export, addresing the health issues of salt workers and creating an information network between consumer and producer.