Azera Parveen Rahman - Solar pumps are brightening the lives of Kutch’s salt farmers
A solar pump costs approximately Rs
180,000. “We don’t have that kind of money to spare,” said the women.
Grassroots Trading Network for Women and Self-Employed Women’s Association
decided to help the workers by providing them loans through Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank
Ltd, a sister organisation of Self-Employed Women’s Association.
Viju Ben has been
working in the saltpans of the Little Rann of Kutch for as long as she can
remember. In all these years, never did the 51-year-old Ben realise the value
of the sun’s golden rays, found in abundance in the semi-arid landscape. The
same holds true for the other saltpan workers who produce about 70% of India’s
salt. Not until they were introduced to the concept of solar energy a few years
back.
Viju Ben’s is one of
the 30,000 Agariya families in Gujarat’s Little Rann of Kutch involved in the
tedious work of salt production. Experts say that the Rann of Kutch was under
the sea centuries ago, until an earthquake exposed the seabed, leaving a
massive desert that sprawls till the Arabian sea.
Every monsoon this
desert gets submerged in briny seawater. Once the water starts receding around
October, the Agariya community step in for their work. They pump the brine and
direct it into rectangular saltpans, where they allow the natural process of evaporation
to leave behind shiny white salt crystals... read more:
https://scroll.in/article/898066/how-the-use-of-solar-pumps-is-brightening-the-lives-of-kutchs-salt-farmers