The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi wrote a letter to the Prime Minister saying that  Tamil Nadu government is willing to allocate land for setting up a National Institute for Epigraphy. With reference to the proposal of the Union Ministry for setting up the institute, the Chief Minister put forward the suggestion of Iravatham Mahadevan , a known expert in epigraphy to set up the institute in Tamil Nadu. He lauded the expert for putting up the idea and said that it was very much relevant considering the fact that Tamil Nadu has the maximum number of inscriptions compared to all other places in India.