Price of backwater crabs falls due to Corona fear; crabbers in crisis

Thuravoor (Alappuzha): As the price of backwater crabs dropped suddenly, crabbers in Vembanad Lake are facing a crisis. Merchants said that the price drop is due to the decline in crab sales after the Coronavirus outbreak. However, crabbers are of the opinion that the merchants are exploiting them in the name of Corona scare.

Mainly, two types of crabs are collected from the backwater. One is mud crab that has green outer shell and legs and white abdomen and other is red crab that has red outer shell and legs. Among them, mud crabs are more expensive.

Until two weeks ago, one kilogram of crab (one crab weighing at least 800 grams) was priced Rs 2200. Crabs weighing between 550-750 grams cost Rs 1100 and crabs weighing between 350-500 grams cost Rs 900. But this dropped to Rs 1000, Rs 700 and Rs 600 respectively.

Crabbers have to spend many hours in the middle of backwaters to collect one kilogram of crab. Sometimes they do not even get any crab. The crabbers demanded that the authorities should bring to light the actual reason behind the price drop.