This year, alphonso mango beyond common man's reach

The king of fruits is commanding a royal price this season, or at least royal enough for the common man.

After being available for Rs500 a dozen last year, the price for alphonso mangoes this year is ranging anywhere between Rs800 and Rs1,200.

Director at Agriculture Product Marketing Committee Sanjay Pansare told dna that an average of 50,000 boxes are arriving daily at APMC, Vashi, as against 80,000 boxes last year. "One box contains between five and nine dozen mangoes, and only 15% of these are of a good quality, while the rest are defective. Due to the untimely rainfall, most of the mango orchards were damaged. That resulted in the black spots on mangoes, which led to the others getting spoilt as well," Pansare added.

If people want to eat quality mango, they will have to pay more, he said. "At cheap and reasonable rates, only defective and substandard quality is available — in a dozen, there will be about two which will be good, the rest all inferior. A majority of the supply is coming from the Konkan, besides Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh."

Citizens, meanwhile, are already feeling the pinch as, despite the high prices, mango is a fruit that has a lot of takers.

Kandivli resident Sagunaben Desai said, "Cost aside, we have to eat. If not now, then when? We bought mangoes on Monday at Rs800 a dozen. This year, even the vendors are not ready to haggle. All are selling at a fixed price. One of them offered us a dozen at Rs400, but the quality was not good and even the size was small."

A trader in APMC said most of the good quality mangoes have been exported. "The Europe market has been opened this year, so most of the fruit has gone to Gulf and western countries," said trader Deepak Pawar.