Machilipatnam Urban Development Authority (MAUDA) vice-chairman Venugopal Reddy to initiate a dialogue with the salt commissioner, Chennai, over the 475 acres of salt lands located in the proposed port area. The district administration has to show equal acreage of land to the salt commissionerate and now the authorities are on the job to locate the land in Machilipatnam limits. The salt commisionerate, Chennai, and the district administration would carry out a joint inspection soon, according to the district Collector B. Lakshmikantham. In fact, the state government’s proposal to build ports along the coastline poses a major threat to the marine salt industry which till recently was a flourishing industry from Nellore to Srikaku-lam, according to the marine experts.

Though the Centre has fixed a nine-month period for salt production, the low pressure in Bay of Bengal has resulted in reduction of the period of salt production to six months. The central salt commissioner leases out the salt pans running into thousands of acres under its control for the production of salt. Besides, private persons too produce salt in places like Machilipatnam. Though officials in the state ports department deny any negative effect on the salt industry from the port, experts have been saying that prior to the setting up of Krishnapartnam port, there was nearly 400 tonnes of salt production in the area. But, the salt production has come down to zero level in the area. The officials further added that the main reason cited by the salt producers in the area was that the dust and pollution caused by the port activities had been turning the salt into black and about 750 acres of salt pans were allocated to the port by the Centre. Now, the Krishna district administration is assessing the impact of port activity on salt production in the deep sea port.