Gujarat’s plan to build Asia’s biggest freshwater lake is a threat to Agariya salt workers

On the last Monday of the monsoon month in September, 48-year-old Gunawant Ramji Koli left for the Little Rann of Kutch to place idols in a mud puddle. During the monsoon, waters of 11 rivers and many nullahs drain here and mix with the tidal waves from the Gulf of Kutch. The water recedes in September-October. Then, the puddle in which Koli placed the idols would have massive saltpans around it.

Koli belongs to Agariya, a traditional salt-making community in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. The Agariyas, like farmers, pray to their gods every year through such rituals for a bumper harvest and for no natural calamities. Koli’s prayers now include protection from man-made calamities too. Surplus water from the Narmada canals floods their saltpans, destroying salt worth several hundred thousand rupees.

Threat to livelihood

The 60,000-odd Agariyas at the Little Rann produce 30% of India’s inland salt but they have no legal rights over the land on which they have been making salt for centuries.

The Little Rann of Kutch is an area where no human being stays. Agariyas make salt in 3% of this land but the 2011 census indicates that a population of 17.5 lakh from nearby areas is dependent on it – the fishers, truck…

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