Villagers in State, TN keep off iodised salt

Unhealthy trend

The two states remain big “problem areas” where close to 60 per cent rural households still do not consume adequate iodised salt, according to a study.

Because of health-risks associated with iodine deficiency, the government made it mandatory for salt manufacturers to fortify salt with iodine to ensure that everyone consumes the minimum desirable amount of iodine. But one-third of India still uses non-iodised salt.

“Villages in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are the problem areas. A large number of small-scale manufacturers supply salt to these areas. They do not have the capacity to iodise salt,” S Sundaresan, Salt Commissioner of India, has said.

The country has about 12,000 salt producers turning out roughly two crore tonnes of raw salt every year.

Ninety per cent of them are small and marginal producers who account for nearly 40 per cent production.  Sixty big companies account for the rest. “Salt iodisation has had a bumpy ride so far.

The Union government withdrew the notification for mandatory iodisation in 2001, which was reintroduced in 2005. In 2010, almost 71.5 per cent of population has access to iodised salt,” according to Sundaresan.

A study conducted in eight states where the iodised salt consumption level was below the national average in 2005-06, reveals that almost 65 per cent of households in rural Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, and 58 per cent rural households in Tamil Nadu do not consume adequate quantities of iodised salt.

 In 2005-06 when the last National Family Health Survey was conducted, the level of iodised salt consumption was abysmally low in all eight states—Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

According to the new study, Uttarakhand, Orissa and Rajasthan have made considerable progress and the other states are trying to catch up, while the two worst performers are Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

The primary reason for marginal improvement in Karnataka is the continued preference for inadequately iodised crystal salt, said the study, carried out by the Indian Coalition for Control of Iodine Deficiency, Office of the Salt Commissioner and Micronutrient Initiative.

“We surveyed more than 9,000 households—1,200 from each state—to find that overall consumption of iodised salt in the eight states has improved from 27 per cent in 2005-06 to 47.3 per cent in 2010,” said Chandrakant S Pandav, head of centre for community medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here, who spearheaded the study.