THOOTHUKUDI: The onset of northeast monsoon has resulted in the flooding of the lion’s share of salt pans in the country’s leading salt manufacturing district, leaving mostly 30,000 workers jobless.
The monsoon has exacerbated the plight of the workers, who could not land a different job during the off-season – mid-October to February – due to the noxious effects of salinity on their skins.
With a 25-lakh-tonne average annual production, the district has over 25,000 acres of salt pans along the coastline from Vembar to Kulasekarapattinam, employing men and women for Rs 405 and Rs 395 per day, respectively.
For that wage, a woman worker has to carry 5.4 tonnes of salt – 200 buckets of 27 kg each – every day, besides watering the pans and the like. The men are mostly involved in more demanding works, including sweeping salt sediments.
Prolonged exposure to saline water has caused sores on the skin of a salt pan worker from Muttukadu hamlet, R Subbulakshmi (45), who said that she could not go for any other work during the off-season. Borrowing Rs 6,000 each during three months of monsoon, she said had to repay it throughout the rest of the working months. Several workers said that they lead a “debt-ridden life throughout.”
Working Women Federation President M Ramalakshmi said that the workers, since their hands turning allergic to other chemicals, do not opt for a temporary job. Say if a worker goes for construction work, the cement mixture would be allergic to their skins, she said, adding that private small-scale industries do not hire a person for three months.
Another worker Murugan said that he rarely finds a job during the monsoon season. Some youngsters work as assistants to electricians, plumbers, painters and in mechanic shops, but, it would not be regular.
Many workers suffer skin infections, sores around fingernails and toenails, said Murugan, who himself is suffering from vision problems. One S Lingammal of Rajapandi Nagar said that many women, due to the accruing debt in their poverty-stricken families, join self-help groups for some financial benefits.
Salt fetches profit only during the rainy season, but the plight of the jobless workers are “unthinkable” during the season, said activist-cum-Coordinator of Unorganised Workers’ Federation M Krishnamoorthi. “Most of the workers are landless and reel under poverty for generations,” he said, appealing the Centre to lease out uncultivated salt pan lands to the workers after registering them with society. Considering their plight, the government should provide them with monsoon relief.
On the other hand, salt manufacturers said that sometimes they “meet with huge losses due to poor demands,” since the product does not have a fixed market price.
President of the Salt Pan Workers’ Union (CITU) Ponraj accused the political parties of “politicising the issue of monsoon relief for the salt pan workers” during every election and forgetting it once they come to power.
“While soliciting votes for the 2016 assembly elections, both the AIADMK and the DMK had announced Rs 5,000 monthly relief for the workers. Before the 2021 assembly elections, the government should sanction the Rs 7,500 monthly relief for the workers for November, December and January,” he urged.