Salt production in Gujarat

Salt extractors have to work in scorching heat with the temperature reaching as high as 40 degrees even during winter months

Salt labourers often set temporary residents near the salt pans and move to another abode during monsoons when water collects in the area

A salt pan in the Little Rann of Kutch's Kharaghoda town

Fresh from the salt farms: Heaps of salt outside the factory

The more the merrier: more packs at the end of the day mean an increased wage for the workers at the salt factory

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Young girls and kids from Kharaghoda join their families working at the factory instead of attaining education

Although salt produce from Kharaghoda remains highest in India, factories in the area still lack desired technology and continue to function on old mechanisms

Making it healthy: production stage where iodine is added to salt

Line production: salt production in process

Mounting salt granules outside the factory for further processing and packaging later

We are in the Little Rann of Kutch, geologically a unique desert landscape in Surendranagar district in Gujarat. The areas surrounding this harsh desert once used to be the base for salt-manufacturing under British Raj and continue to be so to this day.

The surrounding Kharaghoda, a census town, is where the salt production is done. The arid region has expanses of salt pans and various salt factories. It has been the case for years, making Gujarat the largest salt producer of India and third largest in the world, after the US and China.

Ironically, for workers toiling on the marshy lands and in the mega factories of Kharaghoda, the remunerations remain minimal in comparison to the efforts put for the large quantities of the precious white grains produced here.

“On an average, I earn about INR 300 a day,” says a female worker at a salt factory in Kharaghoda. She works with her family members at the factory and together, they make ends meet.

And, while for some, the work remains bound on the walls of a salt factory, for some it’s about putting labour at the salt pans in the area. It is backbreaking work, but men and women take it in their stride and toil on the dry, barren lands.