It was with great difficulty the aged couple made both ends meet. Jakaraiah, sold lemons in Gudur and Ongole and made Rs. 150-200 per day. K Jakaraiah could not continue his daily trade due to illness. Later, he joined a tobacco company near the village as daily wage labourer.
One day, while crossing the main road he was hit by a passing vehicle. The family had to pool all its resources to provide medicare to him. But a few months later, to his misfortune, Jakaraiah suffered a paralytic stroke and has been bed ridden since then. Mariamma is the only bread winner of the family. She is also not keeping good health with severe joint pains but she continues to work as a labourer in the nearby Tobacco company and earns Rs. 85 per day.
Most of the earning goes towards medical expenses of her husband. She buys rice and other essential commodities with the Abhayahastham pension amount. “I eagerly wait for the pension every month,” she says.
Mariamma recalls how she was not keen on joining the pension scheme. “Due to my meagre sources of income and poor financial condition, I could not think of joining the scheme by paying 10 year subscription. Heeding the advice of D. Vijayalakshmi, then Village Organisation president and presently Village Book Keeper, I agreed to enrol in the scheme,” she pointed out. Today, after getting regular pension.
she says: “We pray with folded hands to Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy for giving us this opportunity to get assured income every month. We are indebted to him forever. I am advancing in my age and I am unable to work anymore. This pension will take care of me and my husband for some time. Without this, I cannot imagine the plight of poor people like us.”