Crab export from West Bengal to China came to a halt following the outbreak of novel coronavirus (nCoV), adversely impacting the livelihood of thousands of small farmers.
The state government on Friday said it would look into the plight of the affected farmers.
The dragon economy is a major importer of crabs and tons of crab stock is lying idle in January and February when the demand is high in China due to Lunar New Year festive season there.
"Exports to China is our lifeline. Now that it has stopped, we need help," East Midnapore Crab Farmers' Welfare Association officials said.
The coronavirus outbreak in China has made an adverse impact on the local economy of East Midnapore district where the majority of crab farmers of the state are based.
Livelihood of around 5,000 crab farmers and more than 10,000 fishermen have been affected by the disease, the Association officials said.
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They have submitted a memorandum at the office of the district fisheries department mentioning that their income has been dropped by over 50 per cent in the past month.
State Fisheries Minister Chandra Nath Sinha told PTI that he would do the needful to bail out the small farmers after reviewing the situation early next week.
The value of crab export is about five per cent of prawn shipment which is worth Rs 2,000 crore from West Bengal, but thousands of marginal fishermen are engaged in this business as it requires low investment.
Thankfully, China is not a major import of prawns, otherwise magnitute of the impact would have been very hard, fisheries department officials said.
Crab export from Odisha to other countries was also affected due to due nCoV scare, they said.