Dhaka, Broadcasting News Corporation: Land advisor Ali Imam Majumdar has said that salt farming is an important and labor-intensive industry in the economy of the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Thousands of people are directly or indirectly involved in this sector across vast areas of Cox’s Bazar, Maheshkhali, Kutubdia, Chattogram, and Satkhira. Labor is essential at every stage of salt cultivation, from land preparation to salt collection and storage. This sector offers extensive employment opportunities, which play a significant role in the livelihoods of the rural poor population. Due to the increase in production costs, wages, and transportation expenses in recent years, the lease price of salt fields will not be raised.<\/p>\n
The advisor made these remarks at the first meeting of the ‘National Salt Field Management Committee’ held on Sunday (January 4, 2026) in the conference room of the Ministry of Land. The meeting was presided over by ASM Saleh Ahmed, Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Land.
\nThe land consultant said that by not increasing the lease price of salt fields, it will be easier to maintain continuous production, ensure market supply, and keep price stability. If there are complications in the lease process, dominance of intermediaries, and lack of monitoring at the field level, farmers do not receive the expected benefits. At the same time, with the growing demand for salt in the country, production areas need to be expanded. A considerable amount of char has emerged in Bhushanchar where salt fields can be established. There is also sufficient space for more salt fields in Bashkhali of Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar.<\/p>\n
He also said that salt is an essential component of our daily diet. It is a seasonal industry, with cultivation starting in November and ceasing during the monsoon. The necessity of making every effort to achieve self-sufficiency in this essential product for national interest is undeniable. There is a tendency to unreasonably increase the premium price in leasing or renewing privately-owned salt fields, which is deeply concerning for this sector and wholly unacceptable. In such cases, if a reasonable lease price is not followed, development tax will be imposed on those lands.
\nIt is noteworthy that salt is cultivated on 69,198 acres of land across the country. In this work, 42,000 farmers are directly involved. There are 12 salt centers and 230 salt mills where salt is purified. In the fiscal year 2024-2025, the sector-wise demand for salt was: edible salt 0.885 million metric tons, industrial sector 0.892 million metric tons, fisheries sector 0.039 million metric tons, livestock sector 0.350 million metric tons, with a total refined salt demand of 2.167 million metric tons and unrefined salt demand of 2.610 million metric tons. Salt production per acre is 32.54 metric tons. The production cost per kilogram of salt is 8.29 Taka. In the fiscal year 2022-2023, the annual demand, production, profit, and amounts of refined and unrefined salt were as follows: the annual demand for salt was 2.388 million metric tons of unrefined salt and 1.982 million metric tons of refined salt. Production of unrefined salt was 2.233 million metric tons, while production of refined salt was 1.853 million metric tons. The production cost of crude salt was 1508.56 crore Taka, the sales value of crude salt was 2500.96 crore Taka, and the annual profit was 992.40 crore Taka.The production cost of crude salt was BDT 19,583.2 million, the selling price of crude salt was BDT 29,256.0 million, and the annual profit was BDT 9,672.8 million. In the fiscal year 2024-2025, the annual demand for salt was 2.610 million metric tons for unrefined salt and 2.167 million metric tons for refined salt. The production of unrefined salt was 2.252 million metric tons, and the production of refined salt was 1.869 million metric tons. The production cost of crude salt was BDT 18,674.7 million, the selling price of crude salt was BDT 15,595.1 million, resulting in an annual loss of BDT 3,079.7 million. In the fiscal year 2024-2054, farmers are being forced to sell salt at prices lower than the production cost.<\/p>\n
The meeting was attended by Md. Saiful Islam, Chairman of BSCIC, the Deputy General Manager of the Salt Industry Development Office of BSCIC (Cox\u2019s Bazar), representatives from various ministries, and online participants including the Additional Divisional Commissioner of Chattogram, and the Deputy Commissioners of Chattogram and Cox\u2019s Bazar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dhaka, Broadcasting News Corporation: Land advisor Ali Imam Majumdar has said that salt farming is an important and labor-intensive industry in the economy of the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Thousands of people are directly or indirectly involved in this sector across vast areas of Cox’s Bazar, Maheshkhali, Kutubdia, Chattogram, and Satkhira. Labor is essential at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15392,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15390\/revisions\/15392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}