DESPARDES — There’s a Chanakya twist to pink Himalayan salt which according to TIME, its health benefits include: Lamps can increase energy and improve sleep; they are even in “salt rooms” at spas. They also improve air quality in rooms. “Himalayan salt has healing properties”, has 84 minerals, etc.
100 grams of pink salt can cost $5 to $8, up to 20 times more than generic table salt, says Business Insider. But in Pakistan, it’s even cheaper than table salt, some say.
Indian export of ‘Made in India’ Pakistani pink salt is in the tune of (may be more) 4 billion dollars.
While Himalayan pink salt has caught the imagination of health nuts the world over, where it comes from has now become a political issue.
Mostly mined from the Khewra Salt Mine in the foothills of the Salt Range in Jhelum, in the Pakistani province of Punjab, Pink salt has become a hot potato on social media– matter of sovereignty in Pakistan, after the public discovered that India had been re-exporting it worldwide as ‘Made in India’.
True: ‘the salt cannot have been “made” in India when it was bought from Pakistan’.
Solution? Patent it just as India did with IRRI rice. Then sell pink salt not in raw form but as a finished product, and find new buyers directly. There have been suggestions here over the years to boost unconventional trade items and services.
Khewra Salt Mine is the world’s second largest and a Himalayan mountain of health products it generates– in the global village these are worth billions after value-addition. In raw form its in millions and the yawning gap in their revenue streams is so huge that a Chanakya wink does the trick for pink salt’s Indian business model:
“For success in undertakings, contrivance is very important”; “A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.“
Chanakya
However, trade between the two neighbors (Pakistan and India) is off the table since PM Modi’s government in New Delhi revoked the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in August. And there seems to be no immediate resolution to the long-drawn Kashmir dispute.
Pink salt import from Pakistan and exporting them with ‘Made in India’ cannot be contrived anymore.
Pink slip to India and golden opportunity for Pakistanis –amid the crisis in Kashmir and stoppage of truckloads of tons of Khewra ‘pink’ salt crossing the border.
Get it young lady? (American woman of Pakistani origin who once contacted us for info on how to monetize pink salt products from Khewra mines she leases and sell them in the Middle East and beyond).
Samples she sent us to Riyadh “are awesome and priced good” said many Saudis.
Based on original article in South China Morning Post.
