Abstract: The ongoing health crisis around COVID-19 has affected all walks of life .like Health crisis; economic growth and development throughout world were greatly affected. India also declared a three-week nation-wide lockdown in last of March in the initial phase, which has subsequently been extended for achieving satisfactory containment of the virus spread. All the sectors in the economy were hit by COVID-19 and sericulture industry is also badly affected to this pandemic. In this connection, Sericulture farmers want to come out of the cocoon they have been forced into due to the long lockdown. It is not just these farmers; even silk reelers are under the impact of the pandemic. Reelers who produce silk yarn say the drastic fall in price has taken the sheen off the silk. Schedule was used to collect the data over online conference. The study was attempted to assess the economic impact of COVID-19 on profitability of sericulture enterprise in many states. Some farmers were randomly selected for data collecting on mulberry cultivation and silkworm rearing from major sericultural districts of Punjab. Schedule was used to collect the data over tele-conference discussion and secondary data on cocoon arrivals and prices from market was also collected for the period one year 2019 – 2020. It was drastic fall in price of mulberry cocoon from the reelers due to lock down. As a result, farmers have incurred double loss i.e., they have not recovered cost of production and forgone the opportunity of getting usual net returns. Based on quantum of loss, the Government of Punjab should rescue the sericulture farmers through announcement of reasonable relief/ compensation which helps them to come out from COVID-19 shock.

Keywords: COVID-19, Cocoons, Mulberry Sericulture, Prices, Market.

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2021.8763