Salt farmers lament laxity by govt

Srikakulam: Government’s negligence in resolving the genuine demands of salt farmers of the sea coast area in the State has been leading to reduction in the extent of salt cultivated area every year.

Farmers have also been incurring losses due to increase in investment costs and due to lack of reasonable price for salt. In coastal districts of AP, salt is being cultivated in the sea coast stretches near Pundi, Noupada, Kalingapatnam in Srikakulam, Pudimadaka, Anakapalli, Vadachipurupalli in Visakhapatnam;  Guradhanapalli in East Godavari; Machilipatnam in Krishna and Chinaganjam in Prakasam districts.

Normally, total salt cultivated area in the state is 25,000 acres and salt season begins in the end of December and continues till first week of June every year. Salt will be readied in the fields for every 20 days and during the entire season, the commodity will be available for nine times. 

An investment of Rs 40,000 is needed for cultivation of salt in one acre in normal conditions. Due to lack of power supply facility in salt cultivated areas, farmers use diesel motors to fill salt water in the fields which requires huge amount. In addition to it, transport facility is also not available for salt fields. As a result, they have to bear additional amount to transport their produce to main roads.  

Adding fuel to their woes, competition from branded salt manufacturing companies posing threat to traditional salt manufacturers. As a result, cost of the 50 kgs bag salt is less than Rs 100 and farmers are unable to earn even Rs 70,000 for per acre. As they are incurring losses, farmers are diverting to other activities and salt cultivated area is also reduced this year to 2,500 acres as against 5,000 acres normal extent in Srikakulam district.

`Salt cultivation is not profitable as we are unable to get even Rs 15,000 per month and government is not supporting,’ said  Salt Manufacturers Association (SMA) president Karri Visnumurthy to  The Hans India. ``We can reduce our investment costs if government provides us solar power motors,’ said SMA secretary Pilaka Ravikumar  to this newspaper.

By Chowdari Lakshmana Rao