Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Wednesday said that funds would not be a constraint for the mega housing scheme that aimed at providing free concrete houses to poor hut dwellers and making the State hut-free.

He was speaking at an event here after launching the Kalaingar Housing Scheme that envisages an initial investment of Rs 1,800 crore to construct three lakh permanent houses in the coming financial year.
Referring to doubts raised by Opposition on the source of funds, the DMK chief said: “For whatever project what is needed is not panam (money) but janam (people).” He said 21 lakh huts would be converted into concrete ones over a period of six years.

“With the successful launching of concrete housing scheme everybody is asking what is our government’s next big social welfare scheme. We want to protect the rights of differently abled and help them,” he said.
“India was a signatory to the UN charter of protecting the rights of physically challenged people. So our next ambitious scheme will be implemented with the help of Central government. We will together implement the scheme,” he said.

Earlier in the day DMK chief Karunanidhi said he was of the firm view that there could be no alternative alignment for the Sethusamudram project.
Addressing a press conference here, he pointed out that work on the project was on hold as the matter was in court.

However, a survey is already on to look at the possibility of an alternative alignment for the shipping channel project. When it was pointed out that the Union Budget had not allocated any funds for the project, the Chief Minister said that work had not come to a standstill but has only slowed down.

In response to a question on the death of three students in Annamalai University, Karunanidhi said most of them were from Bihar and his counterpart from that State, Nitish Kumar, had called him up over the issue.

“We have sent a letter to them,” he said. Stating that the DMK was working for use of Tamil in Parliament, Chief Minister added that he would work for the inclusion of all regional languages as well.
To a query on the World Tamil Conference in Coimbatore, he said each committee had been working sincerely for it. Karunanidhi was also planning to contribute something for the conference.