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It’s not just the government that’s turned their back on salt manufacturers, it’s also institutions
and people

Leased 10 acres of government land to conduct salt manufacturing. Sabakki, 55, has been working on salt pans
for as long as he can remember.

R. Selvam (50) a weary salt-pan worker sells 110 kilos of harvested salt for Rs 150 while 110
packets of Tata salt – Iodized (1 kg) sell at Rs. 2090 at retail shops. “But before cyclone Gaja hit
Vedaranyam salt pans, we used to get only 100 rupees for the harvested salt,” said Selvam, who
looks after three acres of the salt pans at Marakkanam in Vilippuram district.
The history of the half-open salt packet by the stove in your kitchen belongs to the likes of
Selvam, the weary salt-pan worker. They work from 6 am to 3 pm on most days but don’t strictly
follow this schedule owing to the sweltering heat; various tasks are assigned to various
labourers.

THE ETERNAL PROCESS OF SALT PRODUCTION

Salt worker checking if the pan has been emptied.

The process usually takes about 6 months which can extend to 9 months taking into account
the monsoons. It begins with the construction of mud pans to hold either sea or sub-soil brine.
These mud pans or shallow pools are spread across acres of land, the sight of which is as
beautiful as it is intense. This process of scraping out a shallow pool for the evaporation and
crystallization process takes up the most amounts of time and labour. The brine is transferred
through the pans until it finally starts the crystallization process, after which the salt crystals are
scraped out by workers, individually, using 6-feet-long wooden shovels to create sparkling white
pyramid shaped heaps.

A Bharati, the Assistant superintendent of the Government of India Salt Factory Office at
Marakkanam says, “all this work they’re doing is not good enough, this produces only 94%
NaCl.” Ideal human consumption is 96% and industrial grade use would be 98%-99%. In order to
achieve that level of purity the brine density should be brought up to 23 degree brine density.
The transferring of brine from one pan to another should happen a couple of more times in
order to get 98% purity, which means the work that they’re painfully doing is just not enough.
The government has set guidelines on how to process good quality salt, which Bharati says,
“none of them care about.”
The average 40-degree temperature, coupled with the sun shining directly above the salt pans
with an excuse of a makeshift resting shed, two or three medium sized plastic pot of fresh water
for all those working throughout the entire stretch, is almost jarring to visitors. But that's just
another workspace hiccup for the daily wage labourers of Marakkanam. The scanty resources,
whatever is available to them come from their own homes and pockets.

THE SALT CESS ACT, 1953

The lack of facilities for dignified working conditions was attributed to the fact that his office no
longer collected cess. According to the act, cess is a tax levied on the salt manufacturers in order
to use it for government expenditure for the welfare of the salt labourers. “We don’t collect it
anymore; the central government asked us to stop collecting some 3 years ago,” says Bharati. He
agrees that the labourers are in dire need of an upgrade in the technology front, and also with
respect to protecting themselves from the harsh occupational hazards, which are both chemical
and physical factors.

A single pot of water, which they bring from home, for all the people working in the evening
shift.
According to official documents at the government salt factory office, the central government
has leased out 1092 acres, the state government has leased out 1304 acres and 18 acres of land
are held by private parties with pattas (property deed).

In the 2414 acres of salt pans, there are maybe 10 makeshift rest sheds, that cannot be in any
manner classified as a shed. It’s a fragile structure made of a plastic sheet for a roof which is
being held by two wooden sticks.

SALT WORKERS WELFARE

Working under direct sunlight in large areas of land covered in white salt does not bear good
news.

As the brutal sun light hits the salt pans, it reflects enough light to cause irreparable damage to
the retinas in some workers and an early onset of cataract in most workers. When asked about
this, S. Ranjitham (45) who has been working here in the salt pans since her 20s said, "I do have
vision problems but it’s not like we go to the hospital for such issues, we don’t have any
money."

Dr. Johnson Cherian, Indira Gandhi Medical College And Research Center, Pondicherry,
conducted a medical research on the health issues suffered by salt pan labourers a few years
ago, he happens to be one of the very few who has. He discovered a variety of disorders that
plagued the labourers due to the prolonged exposure to salt content. The most common
problem was Myalgia, which the medical officer at the Marakkanam Government hospital,
Saranya Arulmathy, also agrees to. It is a musculoskeletal disease caused by prolonged usage of
muscles, leading to aches in a particular muscle or a group of muscles. A couple of the people
interviewed for this report also reported muscle and joint pain. It is a common medical issue
faced by daily wage labourers especially when doing labour intensive work like that of salt
manufacturing.

Johnson says, “a surprising discovery I made was that 20% of the 300 workers we had surveyed
reported iodine deficiencies and problems related to the thyroid.” These workers usually take
the salt crystals back home for consumption, and the problem lies with the fact that salt from
these pans are not iodized. Iodine deficiency is a serious disease that can cause goiters,
dwarfism and according to The New York Times a leading cause of mental impairment
worldwide.

Another deadly disease that plagues their lives is the Chronic Kidney Disease of non-traditional
causes (CKDnT), reported by The Wire. It's rightly called so because, in developed countries,
CKD is commonly caused by diabetes or high blood pressure. But, extensive work done by Ed
Kashi, a National Geographic photographer, while drawing parallels between the lives of
labourers in rural India and Nicaragua, showed that daily wage labourers suffer from CKDnT,
which happens most likely due to the prolonged exposure to heat and dehydration. The medical
officer at the Marakkanam government hospital, however, took it with a pinch of salt. She
vehemently opposed the idea that the harsh sunlight and dehydration of the salt pan labourers
could not possibly manifest into a life threatening disease.
The more common health problems patients come with to the government hospital are,
heatstroke, dehydration and ocular diseases apart from the tan of a lifetime.

LACK OF FUNDS

The assistant superintendent himself struggles in a scruffy looking, old office. The Government
of India Salt Factory office looks like it’s going to collapse on him and his assistant today or
maybe tomorrow. The walls in the office have vertical reddish stains grazing the walls, beginning
at the roof at multiple locations. He points to them and cackles, “Those are remnants of last
year’s monsoon.” There are gaping holes on the roof from missing tiles; it often reminded him
of the missing funds.
The vertical rusty red stains are from leakage of rainwater during monsoons, at the
Government of India Marakkanam salt factory. In the picture, Mr. A Bharati, assistant
superintendent.

It is a typical 1940s style traditional office with a red tiled roof that’s as unstable as the working
conditions of the officers here. He says, “Government funding for maintenance and office
expenditures stopped a long time ago. All we get are our salaries.” He adds that the central
government is moving towards shutting down of the offices in Tamil Nadu.

And with respect to the salt manufacturers, “as of today, the only thing we are doing in the
government’s capacity is paying Rs 1000 – Rs 2000 each per annum to the children of salt
labourers. That’s all,” he says. Last September, the centre even stopped renewing the leases
given to labourers. It is renewed every 20 years with Rs 2400 per acre, but this time, with 56
leases expired, the government has turned a blind eye. The workers filed a petition at the court
and are fighting the centre as of now. “If the NDA government comes back, the lives of these
workers will again be in a muddle,” he adds.

The lack of funds is not a problem suffered solely by the salt factory office or the salt labour
welfare; it is also rampant in central institutions. A retired professor of socioeconomics at the
Pondicherry University, Puyamoli, says that the centre has designed it in such a way that our
research efforts cannot be applied to those areas, “funding for research is only given to
locations inside Pondicherry, or certain locations like that, and even though Marakkanam is only
35 km away, because it’s in Tamil Nadu, we don’t have purview. And TN students will find it
difficult because it’s 5 hours away for them.” He says that Masters and PhD students are already
not interested in researching about Marakkanam because it’s not all fun and colourful.

ECONOMICS OF SALT
Men earn Rs 400 and the women earn Rs 200. The disparity according to Selvam, is that the men work
longer hours and more intensive labour. The salt collected from each of the pan, is carried individually by
men, till the shore of the salt pan.

Selvam who has been working since he was 10 , leased three acres of land from "periya panakkar”
(private contractors), and started business. "We make around 600 moottas (One mootta equals 110
kilograms) per year per acre and sell it for Rs. 150 per mootta," he said nonchalantly. His income from
selling the salt produce adds up to Rs. 2,70,000. "but of course, we have big operating expenses! We
spend around 70,000 - Rs.90,000 alone on labour and equipment per acre every year," he added.

As for the MRP charged by the likes of Tata which is at Rs 16 per kilo, the gap between the cost of
production and the mrp is their own gigantic profit margin. According to Bharati, there are two kinds of
intermediaries here. One kind are the people who take the untreated salt from the pans directly to the
salt Mandis (salt market) for which a commission of Rs 5-7 is taken per mootta (100 kilos). And the other
kind are refineries that collect salt from various pans across Tamil Nadu and treat them with iodine,
refines them, and packs it into various brand’s packaging styles and sells it back to the brands at Rs 3-4.
Companies then sell this product at retail stores from Rs 16 up to Rs 100.

Profit margins enjoyed by FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) range from 300 per cent to 2400 per
cent. He says, “but that’s just how capitalism works.”

Selvam, Ravi, Aignar, And other salt workers at Marakkanam didn't make enough money to send their
children to college. He hung his head in disappointment. The stress of competitive exams, and the lack of
awareness of education, lack of money, contributed to the reason they couldn’t send their children for a
college education. In the 30 kilometer vicinity there are no colleges or universities.

It’s as if the community of salt workers are nonexistent in the society. The government is backing off
from support, there are no NGOs at present working for their support, no institutional research being
done on their lives or the economics of salt workers.

In the sprawling 2000 acres of Marakkanam salt pans, there is nothing that spells safe working conditions
for a human being. Basic necessities like roads are also a far-fetched dream for the workers at
Marakkanam as it is a dry trek through coiled weeds and hot sea sand for around 200 metres to the salt
pan while the Tamil Nadu government approved the upgradation of the Mahabalipuram - East Coast
Road highway (Rs 1200 Crore approximately) into a four-lane highway just a kilometre away.

At the center as Modi fights from his heart to eradicate poverty, and parades around by calling himself
Chowkidar, people working in the unorganised sector are left on their own to fight an unfair war against
income inequality and capitalism.

And for a state that prioritises dignity in labour, not much is spared for the salt pan workers here.