History of Himalayan Pink Salt

That mountain consist of nearly 25 tunnels and 19 levels from amongst them 11 are beneath the ground level.Well this salt have plenty of benefits on human body and also fits in our life style as decoration

 Himalayan Pink salt mine was formed when an ancient inland sea slowly evaporated, and leaves an expensive and great salt behind it. The ancient seabeds inside these mountains ,where this noble and rare thing is mined were once lava covered and lava created a natural barrier that has prevented the salt from toxins and other pollutants . And because of natural barriers plenty of people believe that this is the purest salt on this Earth. Although we can say that the evaporated sea gifted the pink salt to the Earth about 800 million years ago but to hundreds of years ,no one didn't emphasize  on it until the great Alexander found it , however there was time on the earth when the price of salt was on its peak,and it was very expensive, you can guess its price that in 2200 b.c chinese rulers puts tax on salt, the ruler of Rome Jolisezer gave  salary to his army in the form salt ,in latin the salt is called cell and at that time that word was called salarii and with the passage of time that saalaarii turns into salary and this is how salary is connected to salt , Even Elephants were bought and sold through salt in India and servants was sold through salt by greece people  and  because of expensiveness of salt ,people of that time also bought food from salt [3] .so that time was the" time of salt" on this Earth

 So let’s talk about how horses and the Alexander is connected to the salt .when the Alexander the great started his mission to conquer the whole world. he fought to many battles and gathers many victories .but one of his most dominant victory is  the battle with raja Porus ,that battle is not only famous because elephants took part in this  and raja Porus gaves very tough time to the Alexander but also because before this battle Alexander found the current Himalayan salt mountain.when before battle ,he puts his army for rest in a palace ,whose current name is Khewra and the horses started licking the mountain , the soldiers become very shocked and one of the soldier also lick the mountain and as a result he tasted the salt and also when the ailing horses recovered by just licking the salt ,then some of the soldiers related all the story to Alexander and this how the Himalayan mountain was found [3] .

 It is very difficult to cut pink salt because it is very hard  and we can't cut this using mechanical tools like hammer ,screw driver and etc so at the time of Alexander there wasn't such machinery which craft the salt into the desired shape,so he left that mountain but the local raja of that palace bought the himalayan mountains and with the passage of time that mountain accumulated in the premises of Mughal empire and Mughals traded salt in various markets, as far as central Asia  and after the decline of Mughal emperor   sikh becomes the owner of Khewra salt mine and first sikh salt mine owner was  Hari singh nalwa [4]   and after sometime from 1872 the british had taken control over the sikhs territory and because it was a salt deposit  and  was a mineral so it catches the eye of british government and then they started the project of further developing the mine . and in 1872 its main tunnel at ground level was manufactured by Dr .H.Warth .A mining engineer  and when they look inside the mine .they found that the tunnels in the mine were to narrows which makes difficulty for labors and there wasn't any supply of water ,storage facility for storing salt and etc . To overcome  these problems  british government provided the reliable source of water,build the stockroom,they improved the entrance and tunnels of mine , they leveled the road ,and most dominantly they settle the rail  track so that the salt can easily take out from the mine .Hence they made a better mechanism for the extraction of salt .On one side there was the era of progress in the british rule and on the other hand there was scene of brutal oppression on the miners .In 1872 when british government started doing doing project on salt mine there wasn't any miner ,so they took the 30 families from 14 tribes from adjacent villages and settled them in Khewra city .British government forced the miner to do work in the mine and sometime they locked they miners and they weren't supposed to get out until they finish there quotas ,they locked mining families in the mount including pregnant women, innocent children and number children were born in mine and oppression was on its peak when 12 miners were shot and killed  at the entrance of the mine by british government in 1876 [5].From1876 to 1947 the Himalayan mount remains in the british territory and after the independence it becomes the part of Pakistan.First Pakistan didn't emphasize on pink salt mount but after seeing the attraction of tourist towards mine they converted the main tunnel into the tourist attraction in 2002 and in the similar year the PMDC( Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation ) started the "Khewra Salt mine Resort Development project " with an estimated cost of 4.2 million  which now has been increased by another 3 million  [6].In this project they improved the mine and very beautiful decorative light work was done and some of the crystal found there has potential to absorb and reflect light .Because it catches the tourists eye so PMDC made Pul-e-seraat, Badshahi mosque ,Sheesh Mahal, Minar-e-Pakistan, Assembly hall which is the biggest palace in Khewra mount about almost 75 meter tall(250 ft) ,Mall Road Muree ,Lahore Shimla Hill and etc these all places are made by salt and salt bricks and the most dominant thing Pakistan Post office  which is for the use of workers and this is the world one and only post office which is made by salt bricks.There are current 686 miners are working in the Khewra mountain which are the progeny of those 30 families which are cited above. Miners work on daily wages and each miner get 1,500 per day. According to an estimate 1200-1500 [7] metric  tones of salt is extracted out of mountain every day, 325000  tones salt every year and approximately 220 millions tons of salt is take out from its life time. About 500 people comes to see mountain in one day and estimately

35000 to 40000 visitors come every year. Many countries uses modern technology

to mine the salt but Pakistan still uses old traditional way drilling, blasting followed by excavation by hand even after 136 years and this is one of the reason that Pakistan is on twentieth rank of universal salt production list .If Pakistan uses latest technology for the mining of salt then it is predicted that it will boast the economy of Pakistan