India is the largest producer of banana in the world followed by China, Philippines Ecuador and Brazil. Banana production in India constitutes 38% of the total fruit production. The total production of banana is 27.05 million tonnes from 0.77 million ha (AGRISTAT, 2014). Despite being world’s largest producer, India contributes only 0.2 per cent of the total banana export in the world which is marginally low (FAOSTAT, 2013). The total postharvest losses of major agricultural products in India are estimated to be Rs. 44,000 crores, out of which the losses from fruits and vegetables accounts for Rs. 14,000 crores (Nanda et al., 2012).

There are several causes of postharvest losses, including increased respiration rate, ethylene production, physiological disorders and general senescence. But the excess of ethylene production during ripening is mainly responsible for higher postharvest losses in bananas (Sisler and serek, 1997). Commercially, once bananas are induced to ripen with exogenous ethylene their marketing life is only about 3-5 d, depending on the