During the last three decades, Vipan Kumar has been importing pink salt from the Himalayas of Pakistan to sell in India.
However, Nueva Delhi prohibited the importation of all Pakistani goods, including those routed through third countries, after the murder of 26 people, mostly Indian tourists, in Pahalgam in Cashmiro administered by India in April. Kumar, the 50 -year -old merchant based in Amritsar in Punjab, the spiritual center of the Sikhs in India, told Al Jazeera that the prohibition has stopped his business.
Kumar says it normally sold 2,000 to 2,500 tons or pink salt every quarter. “The profit margin is very thin, but still, the business is feasible due to bulk sales. But the ban has completely stopped the pink salt business. We do not know when the situation would be normal,” he told Al Jazeera.
Himalaya pink salt has a pink dye due to a trace of minerals, including iron, and is used in cooking, decorative lamps and spa treatments. Hindus also prefer to use this salt duration, their religious fasts, since it is a non -marine Saltt.
Mined in Pakistan
The pink salt of the Himalaya is extracted in the Khewra salt mine in the province of Punjab in Pakistan, the second largest salt mine in the world after the Sipto Salt Mine in Ontario, Canada. Khewra is located about 250 km (155 miles) from the city of Lahore, which sometimes also lends her name to pink salt: Lahori Namak, which is Hindi for salt.
The salt mine contains approximately 82 million metric tons of salt, and 0.36 million metric tons are extracted every year. About 70 percent of salt is used for industrial purposes, and the rest is for edible use.
“The mine is very picturesque and attracts several thousand tourists every year,” said Fahad Ali, a journalist who lives near the mine, Al Jazeera.
It has approached the units, where the huge rock rock rocks are mir long and loaded in trucks before being, he said.
Salt is exported raw to India, where importers process, grind and pack it for sale.
Prices swell
India depends mainly on Pakistan for this pink salt.
But after Pahalgam’s murders, India announced the end of all trade with Pakistan, which corresponded to the prohibition. The high in commerce was one of a series of diplomatic and economic measures of Tit by OT-Tat-Tat, the neighbors smell each other before an intense exchange of four-day missiles and drones, which touch the two countries to the cusp of a full right.
On May 10, they backed away from the edge, agreeing on a truce. However, the commercial prohibition remains in place.
Salt merchants in India told Al Jazeera that the current import pause has begun to hinder their business as prices begin to increase.
“The announcement of the prohibition has bone bone bone, and prices have already increased,” said Gurveen Singh, a merchant with Amritsar headquarters, who blamed the merchants of existing shares for selling at higher prices.
“The salt, which was sold in the retail market for 45 rupees at 50 rupees per kilogram [$0.53 to $0.58] Before the ban is sold by 60 rupees per kilogram [$0.70]”Said Singh.
In some places, the price is equally higher. In Kolkata this week, Pink Salt was sold in the markets between 70 and 80 rupees per kg [$0.82 to $0.93].
“We have no idea when the situation would return to normal. There would be a complete crisis once the actions are exhausted,” he said.
The rates, at the beginning, rise even more to the other side of India, in the east, due to the cost of transporting salt from Amritsar.
The merchants in Kolkata told Al Jazeera that salt prices have increased by 15-20 percent in the city, but that has not yet hindered demand.
“The Himalayan rock salt remains in a great demand throughout the year, especially festivals when people remain quickly and prefer pink salt on marine salt that occurs in India,” said Sanjay Agarwal, manager in a private signature agreement.
Dinobondhu Mukherjee, a salt merchant in Kolkata, said the government should look for an alternative country to acquire this salt. “The relations between the two countries usually strive, and that affects trade. Our government should look for alternative countries to go to salt so that the supply chain is never interrupted,” Mukherjee told Al Jazeera.
However, Pakistani exporters said the Indian prohibition would have a “positive impact” on their trade. Indian merchants, they said, qualify their salt as their own to sell in the international market at high prices.
“The prohibition would recently help us expand even more, since it would be outside the competition of India,” Faizan Panjwani, director of Operations of RM Salt based in Karachi, told Al Jazeera.
“Without a doubt, India is a great market and has a lot of potential, but we because sending salt adding and not raw. Our salt is already in a great demand worldwide,” he said.
Exchange decline
The trade between the two countries has been decreasing since a 2019 attack against the security forces in Pulwama, in Kashmir administered by the Indians, in which 40 members of the security personnel were killed. In response, India revoked the state of the non -discriminatory state known as the state of the most favored nation (MFN) that had granted Pakistan, who had secured the same treatment between commercial partners. Heavy or 200 percent tariffs also imposed on Pakistan imports.
According to the Ministry of Commerce of India, exports of the country to Pakistan from April 2024 to January 2025 were $ 447.7 million, while Pakistan exports to India turn the same period of $ 420,000.
In 2024, India imported around 642 metric tons of pink salt, which was much lower than the 74,457 metric tons imported in 2018, largely as a result of high rates.
Before the last prohibition, India’s main exports to Pakistan included cotton, organic chemicals, spices, food products, pharmaceutical products, plastic items and dairy products. India usually imports copper, raw cotton, fruits, salt, minerals and some special chemicals of Pakistan.
“The implementation of heavy duty had raised the import price of the salt of 3.50 rupees [$0.041] per kilogram at 24.50 rupees [$0.29] By kilogram in 2019, just although the salt was enrupted from the third country as Dubai, ”said the merchant Kumar to Al Jazeera.
“Still, our business had not affected since the demand was too high, and the buyers were ready to pay the price. But the government, this time, has also banned the entry of Pakistani goods of any third, which is the broth.
An unusual industry that hurts the bee by the ban are the lamps made of the pink rock salt of the Himalayas that is used as decorative lights and also promoting claims not proven of being air purifiers.
“We have to look for an alternative country if the supply of rock salt does not come from Pakistan,” said the founder of Global Aroma Deep, who uses a single name. “The lamp prices had already increased after the imposition of a 200 percent tariff in 2019, and the acquisition of any other country will lead to a greater climbing of costs.”
