  The production of $\alpha$-particles in reactions using both the strongly and
weakly bound projectiles at energies around the Coulomb barrier show several
interesting features. To understand these, the role of various reaction
mechanisms responsible for $\alpha$-production, such as non-capture breakup,
capture of only one of the fragments subsequent to projectile breakup and their
contribution to reaction cross sections have been investigated. A systematic
study of the $\alpha$-particle production based on available data for various
projectile target systems have been performed and a classification based on
projectile type is obtained.
