Don't do it directly in Perl if you're using MySQL. Use their option file; described in DBD::mysql, and look for mysql_read_default_file. File, often named .my.cnf, looks something like (not tested, obviously)–

[client]
port=1000
host=abc01.xyz.com
user=gvenkat
password=ganesh99.
default-character-set=utf8
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Connection–

my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:$dbnam;mysql_read_default_file=/home
+/gvenkat/.my.cnf");
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Lock the file permissions down to 400, owned by the process user that your script uses.