Under the administrative control of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, it is one of the smallest Central services under the Government of India.

In 1856, the government appointed the young William Chichele Plowden, Secretary of the Board of Revenue of the North West Provinces, to report on the establishment of a uniform system of revenue realisation from salt within the British Provinces, and he recommended the extension of the excise system, the reduction of duty, and the introduction of a system of licensing as the measures to achieve this goal.

[1] In 1876, separate departments under a Salt Commissioner were set up, and these operated at the level of each British Province and Presidency.

It was with the passing of the Government of India Act 1935, that within British India (which then included much of present-day Pakistan) salt came under the exclusive control of the central government, with the Government of India taking over the task of collecting salt revenue and transferring it from the provincial salt agencies to the Central Excise and Revenue Department.

[1] According to the Union List of subjects under the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution, the "manufacture, supply and distribution of salt by Union agencies; regulation and control of manufacture, supply and distribution of salt by other agencies", is the responsibility of the Government of India.