The Cost of Salt

Here, workers toil for hours during some of the hottest months, ankle-deep in these pans. Decades of salt pan work have taken a massive toll on their bodies. Bruised soles, impaired eyesight and skin irritation are accompanied by chronic conditions like acute kidney dysfunction and hypertension, making it virtually impossible for them to take up work outside of the pans. As their quality of life continues to deteriorate, protests for better welfare measures have fallen on deaf ears as the government thumps its chest as a 307-million-ton salt producer.

When Lakshmi started working in these pans at age 13, she made Rs.60 ($0.70) a day. She often must stand on salt crystals, which cut into her feet. The wounds deter her and other workers from taking up other manual work, like agricultural labor, to eke out an income during the monsoon months when the pans are shut. Besides being painful, these wounds also allow sodium-rich salt brine to enter their bloodstream, which Vivekananda Jha, a kidney doctor, and the Executive Director at The George Institute for Global Health, India, counts as a double whammy: Too much sodium forces the heart to work harder to pump blood throughout the body and makes it more difficult for the kidneys to filter waste and toxins, leading to dysfunction.

India’s salt production rests mainly on the states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Swathes of coastal land are quartered into shallow rectangles for seawater to spill into. These areas are made of embankments, or ​“bunds,” to hold the water, which evaporates and creates salt. Men construct these bunds and package the salt, while women mostly carry chattis — headloads of buckets filled with freshly harvested salt from 22,000 acres of pans in Thoothukudi. 

Working for an average of seven to eight hours has exposed them to dermatological problems, with workers reporting itching and dryness in their hands and legs. Carrying heavy chattis has also made Lakshmi’s bones and the nerves in her neck go weary, she says.

But that’s not all. Sunlight reflects off the white surfaces, and the glare irritates their eyes, so much so that a 2023 medical camp survey found that 302 out of 544 workers from five pans in Thoothukudi experienced mild to profound visual impairment. 

On top of all this, salt pan workers, like many outdoor laborers, face heat-related maladies. India faced the highest heatwave days last summer — a total of 536 days—and remains a country that is predicted to frequently experience heatwaves. Thoothukudi’s proximity to the coast also thickens the region with humid heat, which has been proven fatal for workers like Lakshmi who spend several hours in the heat. Sun stroke, an exacerbated form of heat exhaustion, is common among them, says Krishnamurthy M, 49, who presides over the Tamil Nadu manual workers’ union. 

An April 2023 study found a high incidence of acute kidney-related injuries among salt pan workers in Tamil Nadu. Vidhya Venugopal, one of the primary authors of the study, remembers visiting the pan — a vast space dotted with one tree per every five kilometers (3.1 miles), making shade sparse. Without a washroom in sight, the women limited their food and water intake to avoid the need to go to the washroom, making urinary tract infections common.

The workers in the study, says Venugopal, a professor at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, brought a litre of drinking water for the whole day but had no option to refill it at the pans. Due to sweating, Venugopal says, they lose almost a litre of water every hour. If not replenished, this causes dehydration, one of the ​“major drivers” of chronic kidney disease. While exposure to extreme heat has an acute effect on kidney function, Jha says, partial recovery is possible. But in the case of salt pan workers, repeated exposure means repeated injuries to their kidneys, which can cause irreversible damage over time, says Jha.

Jha, in his research, also found that the workers are hesitant to report symptoms of heat stress because they fear they’ll lose their jobs or that their superiors will retaliate. Undocumented workers who lack access to healthcare are at an even higher risk of heat-related illness. Attesting to this, Krishnamurthy, the trade union leader, says the government only recognizes a mere 16,000 workers, and only those registered workers can access government-sponsored benefits, including healthcare. Additionally, according to Jha, health and safety regulations in India are not as strictly enforced as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the United States.

According to Krishnamurthy, more than 50% of the workers in the pans are Dalits — a Scheduled Caste community that has historically faced social exclusion and economic marginalization. This is due to the prevalent caste system — a form of social hierarchy by birth — in India. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Management found that this has translated to an overrepresentation of marginalized castes in low-paying manual-labor jobs.

Independent contractors govern the pans, says Krishnamurthy, and for every 11,000 pounds of salt a single worker produces daily, the contractors make a profit of Rs.4,000- Rs.5,000 ($46 – $57). Daily wages remain stagnant.

In 2021, the workers protested that the government compensate them during the monsoon months when salt production grinds to a halt because the rainwater floods the pans. They have since received a one-time annual payment of Rs.5,000 ($58) for October to December.

Even basic workplace interventions, according to Venugopal, such as access to clean washrooms, drinking water and sufficient shade, can help reduce the risk of disease. To undertake these changes, Krishnamurthy, says there is a government order to set up a separate welfare board for salt workers that went out in 2023 but has not been implemented. This comes after a decade-long demand by activists and workers.

The Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board in India not only offered subsidized health and welfare services for workers but also adjusted working hours and mandated the availability of drinking water and sanitation facilities—all of which the salt pan workers would benefit from.

But those in the sector don’t seem optimistic. Lakshmi is disheartened by how, as a second-generation salt worker, she continues to face the same challenges and cumbersome working conditions her mother faced. Her children don’t work in the pans, as she ensures to end the hardships with her.