Date:02/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/02/stories/2008050257480300.htm

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Andhra Pradesh

Price rise does not spare anyone

Staff Reporter

I am struggling to make ends meet, says former MLA Musapati Kamalamma

Demands Rs. 10,000 for former MLAs
‘State does nothing as ryots grow cash crops’

-PHOTO: SINGAM VENKATA RAMANA

INFLATION IMPACT: Kamalamma, former MLA, at her home in Nakrekal in Nalgonda district.

NAKREKAL (NALGONDA DT.): Let alone the downtrodden and middle class folk, Musapati Kamalamma, former Member of Legislative Assembly of the Congress, is also feeling the heat of the skyrocketing prices.

“If am struggling hard to make both ends to meet with a Rs. 4,000 per month I get from the Government as a former MLA, imagine the plight of the poor. People are deprived of a square meal a day due to the ever increasing prices of essential commodities,” Ms. Kamalamma, a spinster who takes care of her 85-year-old mother, told The Hindu.

She argues that former legislators of her ilk who did not make hay while the sun shone, must be paid Rs.10,000 per month to lead a normal life.

Hardships

Recalling the difficulties she faced in completing construction of her house that she started more than a decade ago, she said “cement prices have gone up abnormally. Many companies produce cement using limestone reserves in Nalgonda but none gives a price concession to the people here.”

Ms. Kamalamma was in the limelight by defeating the Communist stalwart Narra Raghava Reddy in the 1972 elections. Drawing a parallel with the drought conditions of the 1970s and the present state of affairs, she said, “In those days, things were not in our control but today we are responsible for the fiasco.”

She pinpoints a lacuna in the crop patterns of the State. “The Government is haplessly watching ryots growing cash crops such as cotton. We should have a policy to cater to the food needs of our people. We should encourage our farmers to raise green gram and red gram for our consumption,” she observed.

Appreciating the Congress Government’s schemes, she said, “People living in the lowest and the uppermost stratum are happy but the middle income groups are in for trouble because of the price hikes. Had the Congress failed to come up with employment guarantee scheme, even the poor would have suffered.”

“Since I am a vegetarian, I am getting on with the pension I get. Otherwise it would have been very difficult for me. Right from oil to meat, all rates increased manifold in the last couple of years,” Ms. Kamalamma, observed.