Gujarat salt depresses price for Tamil Nadu salt pans

Thoothukudi: Arrivals of salt from Gujarat into the Thoothukudi market, the largest salt producing districts in Tamil Nadu, is feared to have hit the price of the locally produced salt in the state. Owing to the intermittent rains since mid August this year, salt production in the district has been severely hit, according to ARAS Dhanabalan, secretary of Thoothukudi Small scale salt manufacturers’ association.

“Due to the untimely rains from August we are forced to forego production that usually would be suspended in October on the onset of the Northeast monsoon,” said Dhanabalan, adding, that Thoothukudi dt has around 20,000 acres of land under salt production with the annual production capacity of 22 lakh tonnes. This is 88 per cent of the total production of Tamil Nadu, yet the district was unable to achieve only 60 per cent of its capacity this year, he rued.

The fall in production though has a negative impact on salt exports from Thoothukudi.

The salt price, however, shot up to Rs 1,800 per tonne in the domestic market to the great jubilation of the small salt manufacturers, who depend largely on domestic consumption within Tamil Nadu and in parts of neighbouring southern states.

But this was not matched with adequate production by Thoothukudi salt-makes, with around 60 per cent free flow salt processing units losing out in production.
 Hence to rejuvenate their units the owners of the salt processing units imported 27,500 tonnes of salt from Gujarat that reached Thoothukudi port on Nov 15.

This ‘import’ from Gujarat, according to small salt manufacturers in Thoothukudi would have severe impact on the salt manufactured in Tamil Nadu as the salt from Gujarat has been supplied to the free flow salt processing units at a lower price of Rs 1,300 per tonne.Few more shipments of salt from Gujarat are expected to Tamil Nadu through Thoothukudi port to meet the needs of the fertilizer and chemical industries in the state, which could further depress the price of salt in the domestic Thoothukudi market, he feared.