Agarias, the traditional salt farmers of the Little Rann of Kutch, shift to renewable energy to produce salt, breaking free from decades of debt
Suchak Patel
Raw salt crystals are produced over a period of eight months in the Little Rann of Kutch.
Suchak Patel/The Migration Story
LITTLE RANN OF KUTCH, Gujarat: Home has always been two places for Bharatbhai Shyamjibhai Mandviya, a 45-year-old salt farmer from Gujarat: His kuccha house in the village of Kharaghoda where the joint family has lived for generations, and the Little Rann of Kutch about 50 kms away where they pitch tarpaulin makeshift shelters for eight months a year and toil in the desolate pans to produce salt.
“Salt farming is our traditional livelihood and my family has been making the journey to the Little Rann of Kutch for the past three generations,” Mandviya told The Migration Story from the salt pans.
In the expansive salt marshes of the Little Rann of Kutch, which produces 30 percent of India’s inland salt - that is mined from underground deposits, processed and typically used as table salt - the bleakness of the treeless, sun-burnt landscape, where the average summer temperature is 44 degree Celsius, is matched only by the drudgery of the traditional salt farmers such as Mandviya, called agariyas in Gujarati.
As the monsoon recedes, and the flooded salt marshes grow dry, Mandviya and his extended family, including women and children, hop on to trucks and tractors to migrate to the Little Rann of Kutch to begin salt production, an exercise that extends from October to June.
Solar panels erected on the salt pans of Little Rann of Kutch. Suchak Patel/The Migration Story
Mandviya and his brother, like the 10,000-odd agariya families that migrate from nearby and distant districts of Gujarat to the salt pans, begin each season by digging wells to pump out brine using diesel pumps. They pour the brine into shallow squarish plots carved on the salt pans and leave it to evaporate under the sun to eventually produce salt crystals.
Though engaged in a time, labour and cost intensive exercise, the agariyas have remained poor for generations and often in debt, largely owing to the use of expensive diesel. However, a solar revolution on the salt pans about five years ago has helped them cut expenses and clear debts. The energy transition has enabled communities dependent on planet-heating fossil fuels for their livelihood to switch to clean energy sources while protecting and even improving their incomes.
“We have to pump out water from the wells for over 200 days a year, and we relied heavily on diesel to do that,” said Mandviya, adding that he would spend as much as Rs 300,000 on the fuel every season.
Fuel constitutes nearly 65 percent of the input costs in salt farming, and around 1800 litres of diesel is needed to produce 750 tonnes of salt, according to Purshottam Sonagra, area manager of nonprofit Vikas Centre for Development that works with salt makers in the Little Rann of Kutch region.
But in 2017, the Gujarat government gave out solar pumps to salt farmers at nearly 80 percent subsidy, as part of a larger push to cut emissions and bring down the costs involved in producing salt.
A 3HP (horsepower rating) solar water pump set - which includes a solar panel that can power at least three water pumps at a time - priced at Rs 2,50,000, was made available to salt farmers at Rs 50,000 after subsidy.
Mandviya has installed three pumps on the salt pan he works on. The slanting solar panels sitting next to his hut in the barren Little Rann of Kutch now power the pumps he uses to extract brine.
The savings have led to many firsts in Mandviya’s life and that of his brother’s family with whom he lives.
“We have now built a two-bedroom house with a separate hall and a kitchen in Kharaghoda,” Mandviya told The Migration Story about his new home with shiny, tiled walls and built-in cupboards which he will share with his brother and family, a massive upgrade from the kuccha house they lived in earlier.
“We could not save anything when we relied on diesel for salt farming. However, since switching to solar power, we saved about Rs 2,00,000 a season, making it possible for us to build a house,” he added.
The two salt farmer brothers bought a motorcycle and a refrigerator as well from the nearly Rs 11,00,000 they managed to save.
A loader machine collects salt from a salt pan on the Little Rann of Kutch. Suchak Patel/The Migration Story
SALT’S WORTH
Across the marshes in the Little Rann of Kutch, spread over 5,000 sq km — almost five times the size of Hong Kong, and covering the districts of Kutch, Surendranagar, Banaskantha, and Patan — the salty water table has supported the livelihoods of agariyas for centuries. An edict dating back to the 17th century from Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s court referenced the salt tax imposed in the region, and salt farming was said to be in practice even in the 12th and 13th century when the Jhala rulers arrived in north Gujarat from Rajasthan.
The region is a desert for eight months and a brackish lake for the rest when rivers and tidal waters flood it during the monsoons.
The agarias arrive at the Little Rann of Kutch around October during the major festival of Dussehra, and work through the intense summer heat until June. But they first enter into a contract with salt traders ahead of each season wherein the traders pay an advance of around Rs 25,000 each month to the salt farmers to buy pump sets, diesel, and to meet household expenses.
Agariyas sell the salt at a pre-agreed price to the trader, to repay the advance.
Diesel and solar panel both power water pumps working to fetch brine somewhere on the Little Rann of Kutch. Suchak Patel/The Migration Story
“Though an interest is not levied on the capital, the arrangement shrinks the negotiating powers of the farmer in deciding the sale price,” observed Pankti Jog, state coordinator of the non-profit Agariya Heet-rakshak Manch which works for the welfare of the community.
This arrangement means that salt farmers mostly begin each season in debt, with the harvest income barely enough to cover the expenses incurred, let alone save, workers and campaigners said.
Intense physical labour, vexing weather and isolation make work in the salt pans gruelling, said workers.
Everyday realities of life and work in the salt marshes are uniquely challenging. Drinking water comes not from pipes but tankers, children attend schools inside buses not buildings, and the only avenue to healthcare is the weekly mobile vans from the health department. Basic amenities like an electric grid and toilets are non-existent.
“My entire family, including my brother’s two daughters, lives in the desert these eight months, and my nieces attend primary school in a mobile school bus,” said Mandviya.
And yet it remains a livelihood lifeline for the community of salt workers who largely belong to some of India’s most marginalised communities and are at the bottom of the social hierarchy, including dalits and pastoral communities. More than half of all agarias belong to the Chunvalia Koli community, who have traditionally been associated with salt making.
“We do not own agricultural land, so salt farming has been our mainstay for generations. Since the time of the British, my forefathers have practised this occupation,” said Santabhai Bamaniya, a 65-year-old agariya, as he scanned the shimmery pale blue waters of the salt pans hemmed by mud bunds.
But the introduction of solar panels has triggered a tectonic shift in the lives and lifestyles of the impoverished salt makers.
“Steady power supply from the solar panels is powering not just pumps but also television sets. Children of salt makers are switching over to state run edutainment programs to make up for the loss of education and also entertainment in the Rann,” said Bhavna Harchandani, a research scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, who has tracked the agaria community as part of her study. The panels offer rare shade for men to relax during breaks in the vast salt pans, giving women a few moments of privacy in their makeshift homes, she added.
Direct-to-Home (DTH) dish in a remote part of the LRK is pitched in front of a hut somewhere in the LRK, where agarias live in for eight months. Suchak Patel/The Migration Story
“Solar-powered pumps have reduced the cost of salt-farming to one-third of what it was earlier,” pointed out Sonagra from the Vikas Centre for Development.
With over 5,500 solar-powered pumps now dotting the region, the energy costs have fallen to Rs 91 to produce one tonne of salt from over Rs 300 earlier, according to the estimates of campaigners engaged with the community in the region. The agariyas such as Mandviya are no longer as dependent on the capital from traders, which allows them greater negotiating powers over salt prices.
“I was able to farm without borrowing from traders for the first time last year,” said Bajubhai Vakad from Tikar village in Surendranagar district.
SOLAR PERKS
Sonagra observed it was difficult to find an office assistant with basic secondary school education among agariyas until a few years ago.
“Today many agariya children attend private schools, complete ITI (vocational) courses, and some manage to go to college. Solar pumps have opened up educational opportunities for the next generation of the community,” he said.
Solar pumps and the financial stability it granted have improved access to health, education and mobility, while also offering freedom to salt farmers from an endless work cycle, campaigners and researchers said.
Diesel use had created an overwhelming dependence on generators needing round-the-clock monitoring, which restricted the movement of agariya families.
“A family member would often have to stay back to monitor the generator. Solar pumps freed us that way; we can now visit fairs as a family,” said Bhupatbhai, an agariya from Kuda village.
Many like 65- year-old Santabhai Bamaniya have traded bicycles for motorbikes. “Earlier, it meant riding the bicycle for a whole day through the desert to get to our village for a social function. Even then, only men could take part. On a motorcycle we can reach the village in two hours flat,” said Bamaniya.
Better mobility has taken away the sense of isolation that often defined the agariyas work stint in the Little Rann of Kutch and improved access to health services.
Maheshbhai Mansukhbhai Karodia, 29, recalled making a harrowing journey with his pregnant wife on a motorbike a few years ago hours before she gave birth. As solar-powered pumps cut down his expenses, he managed to purchase a second-hand car. “It has given us a critical sense of security, especially during health emergencies,” he said.
But while the community is accruing gains from the solar push, concerns regarding depleting groundwater levels have begun to emerge.
Failure to find water after digging wells has become a common feature, said salt farmers.
A bus serving as a mobile school, providing primary education to agaria children is parked on a vast salt pan in the Little Rann of Kutch, where agarias live in makeshift homes for eight months. Suchak Patel/The Migration story
“We have to dig 10-12 wells in order to find water in one,” said Devjibhai Tetitya from Nimaknagar. Since operational costs plummeted with the installation of solar pumps, workers are drawing out more water in the hope of extracting larger amount of salt to improve their incomes, salt farmers explained.
Mandviya agreed he too has to dig many more wells to hit water now.
For now, however, he is grateful that solar-powered pumps have taken away the bleakness which characterized work in the salt desert, he said.
Suchak Patel is an Ahmedabad-based independent writer. He researched the impact of energy transition on the agaria community on a fellowship from IIT-Kanpur and Climate Trends.
Edited by P. Anima.
