The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Wholesalers are buying salt from growers at Taka two to Taka 2.50 per kg and marketing it at Taka 16 to Taka 18.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Salt Growers Welfare Association (BSGWA) said this yesterday at a press conference at Jatiya Press Club demanding of the government to ensure minimum prices for their products and protecting their business from the influx of cheap imports.

President of the BSGWA Alhaj Mostafa Kamal Chowdhury also urged the government to declare salt growing as agricultural pursuit instead of its present identity as an industry.

M Shahriar, Chairman of the Kutubdia Union Parishad and leader of the association; M Shafique Miah, President of the Salt Growers Welfare Samity, and Reazul Karim Chowdhury, President of the Equity and Justice Working Group, were also present.

The BSGWA chief said the salt growers are facing from under pricing of their products at the wholesale level and from cheap imports. He urged the government to set up a salt board to take care of the problems of the salt growers up to the marketing stage.Referring to the Indian experience, he said the Indian government is having a salt commission and the entire business from production to marketing is being promoted by central government functionaries at the state level.

Alhaj Mostafa Kamal wondered why the government is allowing imports while the salt growers is having a large unsold spilled over stock from last year.

He feared once the import barrier on salt will be over from January 2009 as per the WTO obligation, the local salt industry would face a threat from the cheap exports.

The government should, therefore, declare it as agricultural pursuit and protect it by other non-tariff barriers, he argued suggesting the implementation of a number of other facilities such as duty-free polythene supply, low interest credits, protection from encroachers and such other incentives to make the industry competitive.

He said the salt growers mainly localised at Cox's Bazar and Teknaf will not be able to continue the losses at a time the India salt industry is 10 times competitive in terms of production cost and per acre productivity.