Pink salt

The salt mined from the famous Khewra mines is very unique and is portrayed as one of the purest and most expensive salts in the world. Due to its amazing benefits, it is being utilized all over the world as specialty foods, in aerated water bath treatments, and even home decoration. Besides that, due to its use in the health sector, it is also an important part for different religious activities especially in Hinduism. India gets this salt from us dirt cheap. For instance, in 2016 India bought 625 metric tons of pink salt from Pakistan at price of Rs2.98 per kg and exported 15.09562 metric tons salt to Korea, US, UAE, Canada, Somalia and Spain at a price of average Rs125 per kg with its own wrapping and product name. India makes multiple other products from our salt and sells it to rest of the world. Our salt is also being sold by Israel and France as their product.

The current government should look into this crucial matter on top priority. Pakistan can support its devastating economy by properly refining it, making multiple derivative products from it, and then selling it according to the international market price as a Pakistani brand. Pakistan is naturally blessed with around 10 billion tones reserves of salt having 98 percent purity. While the export of Pakistani Himalayan salt has increased in the last five years, it is still less than its potential. The extraction of salt from the Khewra Salt Mines was 389,134 tons, as reported in 2018 by the Ministry of Commerce. At this speed, the mine is likely to produce salt for another 350 years. So we can earn a handsome foreign exchange from our salt industry to help our economy.

Rizwan Qasim

Karachi