trichy the district food safety department officials said that sale of substandard edible salt is prevalent to a certain extent in trichy district this was evident from the findings in the survey that more than 10 of households of government school students use edible salt with no iodine they saiddesignated officer for trichy food safety department dr r chitra claimed that despite the fact that the food safety department repeatedly emphasised the shops to sell iodised salt of good quality for edible purpose many shops either sell noniodised salt or substandard salt based on the recent survey weve found the areas in which the sale of substandard noniodised salt is more prevalent well soon identify those shops which sell the salt and take necessary action she said a source from the food safety department said that sale of substandard or noniodised salt for edible purpose was more prevalent in rural areas since some cheap edible salt varieties by unknown manufacturers were available vendors buy them despite the fact that they are substandard moreover some groceries shops do not keep edible salt in closed containers but leave it open in sacks if edible salt is substandard since its kept open the little amount of iodine that is present in it evaporates he saidan official from the union ministry of commerce and industrys salt department said that though not very common the supply of substandard salt is supplied to the shops to a limited extent but across the state meanwhile state general secretary of tamilnadu vanigar sangankalin peramaippu tvsp v govindarajulu said that traders should never be blamed if substandard salt was being sold by them and that only a very few manufacturers should be blamed