Controlling of Fruit flies through spraying of broad-spec-

India (Kapoor 2005). The Melon fly damages the cucurbits right from the primordial stages of the crop up to harvest (Viraktamath et al. 2003), which accounts damage varies from 30 to 100% (Ryckewaert et al. 2010). Controlling of Fruit flies through spraying of broad-spectrum insecticides is often not efficient owing to insecticide resistance, insecticide residues, environmental contamination, outbreaks of secondary pests and lethal effects on beneficial insects (Bourtzis et al. 2016). Thus the Biological control has emerged as the most commonly studied control tactic followed by other control methods viz., chemical control, behavioural control, Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) and quarantine treatments (Maru and Sao 2018). SIT is a species-specific and non-polluting method of insect control that relies on the sterilization of mass-reared insects by radiation and the systematic release of sterile males into a target area to induce sterility in the wild population (Knipling 1979). It is a pest control strategy that employs radiation to cause mutations or chromosomal aberrations in germ cells in order to produce reproductively sterile adult insects (Reichard 2002). This technique is successfully used against several insect pest, including Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), Melon Melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Coquillett) (Tephritidae: Diptera) is one of the world’s most economically important horticultural and quarantine insect pests inflicting significant losses to the horticultural industry (Vargas et al. 2015). India is considered to be its native habitat of Melon fly (Dhillon et al. 2005), although it shows the worldwide distribution. Melon fly is a serious pest on cucurbits, but it has also been found in beans, tomatoes and other commercial crops (Clarke et al. 2001; Dhillon et al. 2005). It attacks 81 plant species belonging to 19 different families (De Meyer et al. 2015) and destroys more than 60% of cucurbit crops in