MADURAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin laid the foundation stone for the construction of Rs 114-crore Kalaignar Memorial Library through video-conference on Tuesday. On the occasion of late chief minister and DMK supremo M Karunanidhi’s 93rd birth anniversary, Stalin on June 3 announced the establishment of Kalaignar Memorial Library in Madurai. Akin to the Anna Centenary Library in Kotturpuram, Chennai, a state-of-art library named after Kalaignar was announced to honour his multi-faceted personality as a writer, poet, theatre artist, journalist, politician, and administrator.
Accordingly, 2.70 acres of land belonging to the Public Works Department in New Natham road were selected for its construction. A sum of `114 crore was allocated, of which `99 crore would be used for the construction of the building, while `10 crore would be used for purchasing books and `5 crore would be used for building technological infrastructure.
The building would have eight floors along with parking facilities for both two wheelers and four-wheelers. The nod for the building plan came from the Chief Minister(CM) on October 14, following which, the CM inspected the site on October 29. The library would be differently-abled friendly along with separate sections for children, literature, science, e-books and rare book in addition to Tamil, English, and reference sections. The library, which is expected to be a lighthouse of knowledge for the students, educationalists, researchers, readers and those preparing for competitive exams, is to house 2.5 lakh books. Further, the construction is expected to be completed in a year.
Minister for Public Works EV Velu, Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registration P Moorthy, Finance and Human Resource Management PTR Palanivel Thiaga Rajan and School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi were among those present during the event.