When “Salt” Tastes of Injustice - Why the Salt Workers Welfare Bill, 2023 Is Overdue

Salt: More Than Just a Necessity

The basic necessity of a human is 'Roti, Kapda, aur Makaan', but apart from it salt has also been a significant need of the people in their everyday life. Although salt is popularly perceived as the greatest symbol of India’s struggle for independence. There was a time when Gandhiji fought for the taxes on salt, the need of each individual till date. Salt making is a tedious task. Salt is a part and parcel of our eating habits and is consumed by one and all. Salt is produced in the coastal states like those of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra, Odisha, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Gujarat now contributes about 87.4% of total salt production, followed by Tamil Nadu (≈ 4.7%) and Rajasthan (≈ 6.7%).

A 2021 story in the People’s Archive of Rural India or PARI, a website, documented the same pattern, with women earning Rs 395 a day, men Rs 405 being minimal against their labour. The labour by these salt workers makes table salt cheap and also available across India, and globally, but the people who make it are often invisible in the eyes of law and policy

The Faces Behind the Salt Pans

Salt making is not that easy to do but the people who do this job are a human face to the neglected job of a 'Salt Pan Worker'. The “salt worker” by this it means according to the proposed Salt Workers Welfare Bill, 2023 in the parliament is that any person engaged in making salt from sea or lake water on land by digging shallow wells and pumping out brine or in a chemical factory or any related occupation as a wage earner, whether in cash or kind, for his livelihood and includes a person engaged through a contractor or engaged as a self employed person.                                                                          

India’s Salt Industry and Labour Realities

The Salt Industry in India is labour intensive and the majority of the workers are unskilled. They are seasonal workers with a marginal source of income. Since their job is seasonal in nature, they lack permanent employment contracts (job insecurity), adequate wages and social security. 

Despite this dominance in production, the working and living conditions of salt pan workers have been worsening comparatively, they lack basic amenities like potable drinking water, toilets and waste management systems. They do the toughest of manual jobs, risking blindness, blood pressure, skin lesions, knee injury, back pain and exhaustion, and epidemics such as malaria. Many endure lifelong poverty, illness (especially skin and the eye diseases), exploitation, instances of even bonded labour, salt spray, salt-laden air and water, heavy lifting, and barefoot work on sharp surfaces. These conditions cause chronic illnesses (skin problems, eye strain, joint pain) and reduce life expectancy and earning capacity and corrosive environments, making them susceptible to chronic skin ailments, eye problems, and other health risks. 

The skin diseases or the process of making salt exposes workers to constant sun, which results in fading away the fingerprints resulting in the salt workers not able to avail and access the facilities by the state. Recent studies also point to heat stress and kidney dysfunction as serious occupational hazards in salt pan work. 

Illiteracy is common, and generations often continue the cycle of the salt labour. Their children are mostly school drop-outs and are vulnerable to chronic cough and tuberculosis. They were and are  often exploited by the contractors, intermediaries and money-lenders. 

The employers hardly offer them protective gear such as eye goggles or gum boots. Amenities for first aid and recreation are inadequate in many places. The recent evidence from the field studies reflect that salt workers in India suffer from substance abuse, alcohol dependency, work place violence, low wage, poor nutrition status, domestic violence against women. 

In Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch, many of them are the seasonal migrants who have little work in monsoon months and return to their native villages in debt. Their remuneration is also minimal, and they remain vulnerable to the economic shocks. The lifelong poverty and the ‘Majboori’ traps these workers in cycles of debts.

Invisible to Policy: The Slow March of Legislation

These salt workers lack a protective social safety net in their old age or when disabled. Access to quality education for their children remains severely constrained and mere a promise in - The Salt Workers (Protection  and Welfare) Bill, 2014 and then Salt Workers Welfare Bill, 2023 and then. These workers for about nine months a year, they remain engaged in the salt production with little else to sustain them. 

Women who form a large part of the workforce in some regions engaged in salt making face low pay, seasonal insecurity, and limited access to social security or maternity benefits. The women like other menial jobs in this salt making jobs suffer double marginalization. 

For a long time it has been an area of neglect, in fact for many decades activists and unions have asked for a focused law to protect the salt pan workers’ wages, health, housing, and dignity. The Salt Workers Welfare Bill, 2023 has been introduced in Parliament, but its progress has been slow and piecemeal. It is still being discussed and not being enforced as a law. 

Regardless, every individual consumes salt on a daily basis but doesn't think about their sacrifices, and efforts they put in yet their rights remain largely invisible. The Salt Workers Welfare Bill, 2023 introduced lately but stands as a beckoning promise. But until it becomes law, cycles of neglect continue to persist. 

According to Mr. Akhil Gupta in the book titled - ‘Red Tapism’, there is bureaucratic systematic oppression that are the hurdles in enforcement of such laws that are needed in the society. Katherine Boo, in her book titled - ‘Behind the Beautiful Flowers’, argued how cycles of injustices continue to produce and reproduce poverty due to this neglect.

The Case for a Comprehensive Salt Workers Policy

Therefore, the establishment of a national level independent body, i.e., the National Commission for the Welfare of Salt Workers, with quasi-judicial powers, is proposed to address many of these issues faced by salt workers. These Bills aims to ensure that the central and the state governments implement welfare measures on the grounds with real impact by inclusive, sustainable, evidence based policies to cater to these vulnerable sections of the society and make them feel part of the mainstream society by catering their needs to improve the living conditions of these salt workers and restore dignity to their labour and emphasizing the need for targeted interventions.

India already has some laws aimed at protecting informal workers most notably one of the laws is the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008. That law encourages states and the Centre to design social security schemes for unorganised workers, and it provides a framework for welfare boards and benefits. For salt workers, who face very specific hazards and industry structures (smallholder producers, seasonal work, caste and gender dynamics), a generic “unorganised worker” approach has left major gaps that includes - slow registration, uneven scheme implementation, poor awareness and outreach, and benefits that do not match their occupational risks that they suffer. In practice, social security promised on paper rarely reaches the salt pan and the workers remain mere paper tigers. 

The salt workers focused Bill introduced in Parliament versions in 2014, 2023 and 2024 proposes a sector-specific approach, a national commission or welfare board, registration of workers, a defined set of minimum standards (wages, protective gear, health check-ups regularly and in timely manner), and a fund for compensation and insurance of the workers and not for the name sake. A focused law can create standards tailored to salt work for example, rules about shade while working, clean drinking water, female friendly toilets, maternity support, and structured compensation for chronic occupational diseases. The Bill’s drafts show intent to create institutions and funding routes that a generic Act did not provide, ensuring inclusivity. 

Learning from Existing Welfare Laws

Comparatively what other sectoral welfare laws teach us, India has precedents for effective sectoral welfare laws: the Building and Other Construction Workers’ (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Acts and the Beedi Workers Welfare Acts are examples. Those laws created dedicated welfare boards, levy/cess funds, registration drives, and scheme packages (pensions, education, healthcare services/facilities) administered at the state level. 

Wherever implemented well, these laws improved the access to pensions, education support, and medical aid. The lesson is that a targeted law backed by predictable funding and active enforcement, robust policy implementation can deliver measurable gains but only if political will, institutional design, and enforcement follow. (Maybe see how state construction boards roll out pensions or health schemes and global best practices of intensive investment in research and development like that of China) 

The Central Government has under the Tenth Plan introduced the Namak Mazdoor Awas Yojana, for the construction of 5 000 houses for salt workers. Pilot plants were being planned through Bharat Heavy Electricals to supply potable drinking water, using the reverse osmosis process. Next year, five reverse osmosis plants would be set up in each salt producing state. 

“Mr Sundaresan who was Salt Commissioner for the Government of India, agrees that “more welfare schemes are needed for salt workers”

Lessons and Gaps: Implementation Challenges Ahead

Even with a law, several obstacles can blunt impacts/benefits directly and indirectly that are: 

(1) Identification and registration where in the many salt workers are seasonal, migratory, and work on privately owned pans; capturing them in registers is hard. 

(2) For finance and governance, welfare fund boards need predictable funds (a cess or central grants) and transparent governance to prevent the leakages. 

(3) Coordination across states as the salt production is concentrated in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu; the Centre–state coordination must be also strong.

(4) Health and environment linkages where the salt work is tied to coastal ecology; disasters and climate events can wipe livelihoods and require disaster-linked compensation as well. Legal provisions must include disaster relief & adaptation.

(5) Gender sensitivity laws where laws must deliberately include maternity protection, safe sanitation, and protection from wage discrimination because women, often doing hardest work and lowest pay, must get focused provisions on harassment redressal. Also caste and marginalization dynamics must not be ignored. Evidence from state-level welfare boards (for example Tamil Nadu’s steps to set up a salt workers’ welfare board) shows both the promise and as well as the need for steady follow-through. 

A major problem of the salt industry is that of timely transport of harvested salt from Gujarat or Tamil Nadu, the main producing states, to other areas. Tractors and trucks move salt over short distances, Railway wagons over long distances. During the peak salt season, the Railways are unable to provide enough rakes. The freight charges are very high, small producers say. This affects their revenues, and indirectly impacts on the salt workers as well.

The body of these workers due to continuous exposure and contact with the salt doesn't burn easily while they die.

Constitutional Duty & Legal Mandates for Action 

There is a strong constitutional support for this legislation:

1. Article 38 and Article 39 of the Constitution demands that the State strive for social and economic justice and ensure that laws protect the health and strength of workers. This should be throughout.

2. Articles 41-43 also call for securing just and humane conditions of work, and provisions for workers’ living wage, etc.

Under administrative law principles, delay in implementing legislative schemes or failure to act upon recognized need may be subject to Judicial Review especially when state obligations and rights are clear, and vulnerable populations still suffer. Judicial Activism would also be significant to address the issues in terms of failure of the executives and the administration.

A Practical Roadmap for Reform

A policy roadmap should be multiintegrated that is practical, low-cost, high-impact steps that includes:

1. Immediate registration drive: Mobile enrollment camps run in salt-producing areas so that during the working season to register workers for benefits and ID cards.

2. Dedicated welfare fund: A small cess on wholesale salt or a central grant matched by states can seed a fund for pensions, health camps, and disaster relief and the other requirements/safety nets that these workers need including females.

3. Minimum workplace standards: Rules for shade, drinking water, toilets, first-aid boxes, and protective footwear, hand gloves, some tools/machines to be enforced by labour inspectors and local boards.

4. Health outreach and portable benefits: Regular health camps focusing on skin, eye, and musculoskeletal care; portable health records and insurance that travel with workers including seasonal workers.

5. Gender-focused measures: Paid maternity leave, menstrual leave like karnataka government, crèche facilities during the season, and grievance redressal cells with women staffers.

6. Data and monitoring: Annual reports from the national commission and state boards, with public dashboards on the registration, funds used, and health outcomes. These practical steps can be phased and are cost-effective compared to the human cost of inaction.

7. Regular meetings between the salt workers and the officials to understand what the workers including female workers need and empathise with them. Their children get enrolled for free education under Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan and feel included in the mainstream society. Implementing most of these recommendations would be the best way of recognising and rewarding salt workers for their contribution to the Indian economy

Community-Led and Participatory Governance

Apart from guiding laws above it should be community driven approach where in the the community (salt workers) they themselves propose the ideas, requirements and needs that they want like ‘Dahisar Model of Whatsapp Governance’ where in the residents click photos and send on the group and ask the officials to address them as soon possible and this is really effective in Dahisar. This approach can be understood and molded for effective governance for Salt pan workers. They can also have their unions to fight against the officials if something goes wrong by the state. 

Another example of Pune’s Participatory Budgeting which would also help these workers to suggest and vote on projects that improve their work and even their living conditions. They can in fact join the local meetings and directly share what they need, so funds go to help them via Direct Benefits Transfer and no middle man exploitation can take place. 

The collective efforts of each official will also have to be there, the officials have to be alert, do evaluation and monitoring in regular intervals and in a timely manner to fill in the policy gaps. 

Way forward: Dignity, Empathy and Not for Charity

In conclusion dignity, not charity Salt pan workers make a basic product that touches every household in India. They deserve laws and institutions that completely recognize their specific risks and provide them all predictable protection. A Salt Pan Workers (Welfare and Regulation) Act can fill gaps left by broad, general laws, but only if it pairs clear standards with real funding, strong implementation, and attention to gender and environmental realities. 

Law alone cannot fix everything, but a focused/targeted law backed by administrative commitment would be a major and significant step towards restoring the dignity and security to a community that has long been taken for granted. 

“Those who bring us the taste of life deserve a life of dignity in return.”