NETRAKONA, June 28 (BSS): Non-iodized salt, being sold freely in the rural markets in the district, is posing serious threat to public health.
Reports reaching here from rural areas of the district said a section of salt traders are selling non-iodized salt in rural hats/bazars for more profit violating government ban.
Corrupt and dishonest businessmen are supplying non-iodized salt to the traders in rural areas secretly, reports said.
According to official sources, the government enacted a law in 1994 for producing, selling and using iodized salt to meet the deficit of iodine in human body.
Under the law, the government imposed ban on production, sale and storage of non-iodized salt anywhere in the country.
But, dishonest traders are selling non-iodized salt in many rural hats/bazars of Netrakona district in the absence of proper official monitoring system to enforce the law.
Local people informed that the people of low-income groups including day-labourers, Rickshaw-pullers and marginal farmers are buying non-iodized salt as they do not know the adverse impact of non-iodized salt on human body.
They said the poverty-stricken people prefer to buy non-iodized salt as that is sold at very cheap price.
Over 100 rickshaw-pullers, day-laborers, marginal farmers and poor-people when asked expressed their ignorance about the necessity of consuming iodized salt for meeting the "iodine-deficiency" responsible for causing goiter and mental and physical retardation.
When asked to comment, local elites underlined the need for introducing proper official monitoring system on salt-trading in the district, side by side steps to create mass awareness through special campaign in the rural areas about the bad-affects of non-iodized salt on human health.
