Inflation has touched a 44-month high of 7.83%, but a dosa vendor in Andhra Pradesh has held his priceline at 10 paise a piece for more than two decades now.
But inflation has started pinching this Andhra vendor too
Inflation has touched a 44-month high of 7.83%, but a dosa vendor in Andhra Pradesh has held his priceline at 10 paise a piece for more than two decades now.
For years, a cross-section of customers, from students to teachers to daily-wagers, started their day with the 10-paise dosa served with three types of chutneys — tomato, chilli and ginger — at Narappa Reddy Muni Reddy’s breakfast corner in Kadapa city of Rayalaseema.
Reddy’s mother Subbamma had started the Masaipeta centre five decades ago, selling a dosa for an anna — 6 paise. But the family hiked the rate to 10 paise in 1980 due to the shortage of one-anna coins. Reddy hasn’t raised it since — the size of the dosa has “shrunk a little bit” though.
“Yet the morning crowds haven’t reduced,” says his wife Ramalakshmi.
And people don’t have just one but gobble five to ten dosas each, says Reddy, adding “the price and quality we offer is still the best”.
Reddy’s recipe is a major hit. But the family has started feeling the pinch of spiralling prices. Ramalakshmi says they sell 2,000 dosas a day and make 15% profit — Rs30, just enough to make both ends meet.
And though Reddy has added other items — cigarettes, biscuits, samosas and candies — to his merchandise, his sons Mallikarjun and Shiv Shankar, who help him out with the business, aren’t very happy.
“It was OK when the price of rice was low and we could afford it. But now we are finding it difficult to meek both ends meet,” says Shiv, the elder of the two who plans to set up a cycle shop.
But Reddy would have none of that. “Our dosa business will continue till my last breath,” he says, offering his specialty.
Things have been particularly difficult for the Reddys for the last one year. His elder brother separated and asked for his share in the family’s property.
“He wanted the dosa corner but I preferred to part with a small piece of land instead,” Reddy said. It was a wise decision as he sold off the land and is a pauper now, Reddy adds.
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