Buy milk alternate days. If that is not possible, buy three glasses of tea that all six in the family can share – this has been the strategy that K. Selvam and his wife S. Rosy have been adopting in the last few weeks.
“What else can we do if milk is so costly? Even the tea that we buy costs two rupees more now,” says Selvam, a daily wage labourer who works in a tinkering unit in Pulianthope, earning about Rs.200 a day on days he is called for work.
The couple, with four school-going children, live in a small hut, which seems not more than 10x10 feet in area, in Aindu Kudisai colony in Chintadripet. Rosy works as domestic help in Nungambakkam, and earns Rs. 2,000 a month.
“We are able to send my three daughters to an English medium school because someone sponsors their education. Our son goes to a Tamil medium school,” says Selvam.
“The children used to drink milk every day, but now we have little choice but to buy tea on days we don't have money for milk. On several days, when I am not called for work, we don't even cook at home. We buy some idlis nearby and manage,” he adds.
With the frequency of meat and fish also coming down on the family's menu, the children S. Muthulakshmi (14 years), S. Swetha (11), S. Aswini (9) and Abikes (7) seem to have hardly any protein intake. “Both of us take the bus to work. His bus fare has gone up from Rs. 2 to Rs. 4 and mine, from Rs.4 to Rs. 6. This is just one way,” says Rosy.
With milk and transportation costing more, the family is left with virtually nothing half way into the month. “We had saved a bit of gold for my girls. I was forced to pawn it with a moneylenderrecently, for Rs.8,000. Even then it is tough. We can't buy anything remotely healthy for our children as we simply cannot afford it, ” says Selvam matter-of-factly.
Keywords: price rise, Tamil Nadu government
As I empathize Mr. Selvam's family condition, I also want to say that government cannot bail out every one all the time. The government says We two Ours one, thats not the case here obviously as the family wanted a son, I guess. When you have limited income, you need plan the family and life in similar tone. With our population size growing like this, it is utter nonsense to absolutely expect the government to provide food security and shelter etc as in the case of western society. When every one of us want non stop salary hike, and bonus hike, why can't we accept price hike. I agree it was a steep increase, rather the government could have regularly increased while using those funds to regularly maintain the service. May be as interim measure, government can ensure mid day meals to every needy child while also ensuring concession travel for the needy, to be phased out gradually.
@Doodu, It is absurd to compare living conditions 70 years ago. Just compare the milk price from last year and now. Our CM has removed a beautiful library and increased prices on basic needs(Public Transport, Food) for the public. Please read the news carefully and comment. All the daughters are sponsored for their education, that's how they are going to an English Medium School. Yes in our country population is an issue but in this case milk SHOULD be affordable regardless of being rich and poor...no excuses on that.
Is this the problem because of having 4 children and also they have to put 3 children in the English medium school? We also wonder how their way of living would improve if the there are roll backs in this increase.70 yrs ago the prices were many times lower but this kind of problems existed in many families.They suffered with 200 rs income per month and now we suffer with 200 rs income per day.There were no subsidies food items in those days as we have now.We want the hindu and other news media to give guide lines to the people and the Government for coming out of this situations.
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