Fickle weather sours mango

Mumbai: Theking of fruitsis strewn all around in the Vasai region as helpless farmers' survey their losses.Thefluctuating weather in the region, from fog to extreme heat, has taken a tollon the mangocrop. 

    Cultivators are worried as theking of fruitshasbeen falling off treesjustwhen they are in the process of ripening. "I have been into farming for the last 20 years. This is the first time that I have seen mangoes falling off trees in such large numbers," said a farmer, RonaldD'Souza. 

    Every year, farmers start getting worried when it rains before schedule. This year, they say, the damage has been caused early. There are nearly 50 big and small orchards in Vasaitaluka. 

    Cultivators were hoping for a bumper crop this season as all orchards in the area had been blooming with mango flowers. Within 15 days, the fruitswouldhavebeen ripefor plucking, but unexpected smog andexcessiveheatin the region damaged the orchards, said a farmer. 

    A variety of mangoes is grown in farms across the Vasai region. "By this time, we get rawbaby mangoesfor pickles. But this year, mangoes have been falling off trees and 

cannot be used for pickles as well," said a farmer. Varieties such asRajapuri andTotapuri are grown in the region. 

    Farmers are worried as in most cases, the mango crop is sold at the flowering stage. A farmer said depending on the flowering of trees, traders buy the crop. "If the fruits don't growtotheir capacity,wehave to refundthe money."

Mangoes lie strewn around in the Vasai region

RBI mulls use of cheques for loans against gold

WHAT'S UP

Expecting excessive heating up of the gold loan business in the country, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently came out with regulations, limiting gold financing companies to give only up to 60% of the value of gold kept as collateral as loan. It also stopped the practice of acceptance of public deposits by subsidiaries of some gold loan companies through surrogate branding. Now the buzz is that the central bank is working to limit the amount of cash that gold loan companies can give its customers. The most likely change in rules could be that beyond a certain limit, say Rs 50,000 per loan, the advances should be through cheques. The move is aimed at limiting the use of hard cash in this flourishing business. And RBI's move would surely help in establishing some trail about the use of funds from gold loan, even if not the source of money used to buy the gold that is being kept as collateral.