Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/204

VIZAGAPATAM. excise duty upon it and a small cess to cover the interest on the capital cost of permanent works carried out by Government to facilitate storage and manufacture.

The salt made at Kuppili and Bimlipatam is lighter than that produced in the other factories, and consequently — since salt is bought by merchants at the factories by weight and sold retail in the bazaars by measure — it fetches a better price. This is especially the case at Kuppili, although the product there gives indifferent results on analysis. The Bálacheruvu salt used to be the best in appearance, consisting of large (but brittle) crystals, but of late the factory has not been regularly worked and the quality has declined. The Karása salt is the worst, both in size and colour. In the old days when large numbers of Brinjári gangs came right down to the coast to fetch salt for Bastar and Raipur, they used to prefer the salt manufactured at Naupada in Ganjám, which consists of large and hard crystals which will stand transport by pack-bullocks without wastage, to the more brittle kinds made in the factories in this district. These Brinjári gangs still transport large quantities of salt to the country beyond the gháts, but they no longer come to the pans in the same numbers as formerly. Much of the salt is carried in carts through the low country and sold to the Brinjáris at places at the foot of the hills or where the cart roads stop, such as Párvatípur, for example, and Naurangpur.

The Kónáda and Bimlipatam factories are small affairs; Póavaram is comparatively new; and Bálacheruvu suffers from want of labour and from its distance from the railway; but the Karása factory is a fine one, capable of much extension. Figures of the manufacture and sales at each of these places in recent years are given in the separate Appendix to this volume. They supply (a) parts of Orissa and the inland country behind it, sharing the market with salt imported through Calcutta, and with Bombay salt brought by the Bengal-Nagpur railway to Sambalpur and the adjacent country; (b) the plains of Vizagapatam and parts of Ganjám; (c) the Jeypore country above the gháts, to which Bombay salt does not penetrate; and (d) the portion of Bengal and the Central Provinces which are accessible from the great route through the Ráyagada valley and are yet beyond competition from Bombay. In 1896 Messrs. Stuart, Hall & Co., a branch of Messrs. Hall, Wilson & Co., who had leased part of the Karása factory, attempted so to purify and improve the local salt as to render it able to compete with the imported 'Live rpool' salt in the 184