Salt producers in Cox’s Bazar on Saturday demanded a ban on ‘unnecessary’ salt import from India and Myanmar to protect the sector.
They also demanded that the government should have a strong mechanism to monitor the whole process from production salt to its marketing to reach the salt to retailers at lower price.
The Salt Farmers’ Association of Cox’s Bazar at a press conference at the National Press Club in Dhaka put forth the demand.
‘Production of salt is higher than the domestic demand,’ the association’s member secretary FM Nurul Alam said.
But he alleged that a vested quarter prefers salt import from India to make windfall profit.
‘Livelihood of about 20 lakh people involved in the sector will be at stake if salt farmers are forced to stop production,’ he said, ‘in the wake of unnecessary import of salt from the neighbouring countries that led the salt farmers to incur huge losses.’
‘Many have already started shrimp farming instead,’ he said.
The association’s president HM Shahidullah Chowdhury said that the government was allowing a vested quarter to import salt in the name of safeguard measures which has become a threat to local salt farmers.
He said if there were a close government monitoring of production of salt and its marketing, the people could get the salt for Tk 8 to Tk 10 a kilogram.
‘The price of salt in Cox’s Bazar is only Tk 1 a kilogram but the factory owners sell a kilogram of salt for Tk 16 to Tk 18 a kilogram just after packaging which sots only Tk 0.25,’ he said.
He also demanded that the sector should be handled by the agriculture ministry and not by the industries ministry.
According to statistics provided by the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation, salt production was 1.74 million tonnes during 2009-2010 against its aggregated local demand for 1.33 million tonnes.
