Oct 31, 2020
News from Madurai says that while the delay in the onset of northeast monsoon has in fact angered the farming community, on the other hand, salt producers here are happy and thrilled as they can extend the current season for three more weeks to achieve annual production of 21.25 lakh tons of salt.
Since the procurement price of salt is also very decent and promising this year, the salt producers are really jubilant on those grounds.
As weather suggests that the northeast monsoon usually commences in October, the salt producers used to wind-up their operations on salt pans by September every year and stock their produce to be sold around mid-January. Salt producers having their salt-pans in Ayyanarpuram, Arumuganeri, Muthaiahpuram, Veppalodai, Tharuvaikulam, and Mullakkaadu, areas would either wait for bulk orders between September and January or go in for value addition like iodization, packaging etc… during this period with a watchful eye on getting more price for their salt.
Though from January till September is the ‘salt-producing season’, the lockdown has caused some serious impact on the production in March 2020 for a week. However, like farming couldn’t be stopped, salt industry too resumed their operations that went on smoothly till September-end with sunny days and strong winds that are important to increase and aid salt production.
The salt makers were pondering that the season would come to an end by late September, delay in the start of monsoon gave them three more weeks of grace period for salt production. With the extended season, the district has so far produced 21.25 lakh tons of salt till the third week of October.
Secretary of Small Scale Salt Producers’ Association, A.R.A.S. Dhanapalan said the increased production of salt was due to the steps taken by Collector Sandeep Nandur during the lockdown in March.
“When police stopped the workers and the producers from going to salt-pans during the lockdown, the Collector came to our rescue saying that the supply of salt, an essential commodity, should not get affected. Hence, we could achieve 85% of our capacity, which was 17.50 lakh ton last year. We’ve already sold 14 lakh tons of salt and 7.25 lakh tons of salt is stored in the pans,” Dhanapalan said.
Salt price is also on an encouraging note this year as a ton of salt was being sold anywhere between ₹1,200 and ₹1,700 based on quality.
“The increased production and decent price this year will help us settle any outstanding. We’re quite satisfied with the season this year,” said A. Antony Dhanaraj, a contented salt producer having salt-pans near Tharuvaikulam.