#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $hash = {'MONTH' => 'January'};

print $hash->{MONTH} . "\n";

my $string =  q('MONTH' => 'January'); #from file
# I split your original string, but there probably is a cleaner
# way from your file read

my @split = split / => /, $string;
s/'//g for @split;
print "@split\n";

my $hash1->{ $split[0] } = $split[1];
print $hash1->{MONTH} . "\n";