RAJKOT: The salt workers in little Rann of Kutch are facing water scarcity in winter season here. The only source of water for the salt workers is supply through tankers which according to them is irregular. The salt workers don’t bath for months because of lack of water.There is a 500 square km area near Kharaghoda in Patdi taluka of Surendrangar where nearly 10,000 salt workers are working and live eight months of the year in temporary shelters.The salt workers allege that there is no time fixed for arrival of the water tanker and usually it comes after 20 to 30 days.A leader of salt workers Dilubhai Poradia said, "We don’t have a capacity to preserve water, whatever small tank we have won’t last more than ten days." He added that "Because of water scarcity, we take bath once in a month and some women take bath once in two months, we are forced to use salty water.”According to average water distribution, a family of eight people get 500 to 700 litre water at a gap of every 20 days.The other options for the salt workers are to fetch the water from Kharaghoda which is 20 to 70 km far from the desert depended how far they have salt pans. The other option is private tankers which are very costly.A local resident Ambu Patel said “Last year they were getting four tankers in a month but this year according to water supply officers some of the villages of Patdi taluka have been declared scarcity hit and the water is diverted to those villages. The salt workers also submitted a memorandum to Patdi Mamlatdar requesting to provide drinking water.”

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