Generous man spends daughter's wedding money to build houses for the homeless

In a deviation from the norm, a wealthy businessman in India chose to celebrate his daughter’s wedding by spending all the money to build homes for poor.

Maharashtra-resident Ajay Munot built 90 houses for the homeless worth Rs 7 million to 8 million (between $103,000 to $118,000) from the money he had saved for a lavish wedding for his daughter. Both bride the and groom supported the decision, reports the Indian Express. The bride saw it as "the biggest gift for her wedding."

The 90 houses were built across an area of 8,093 square metres, which additionally costed him $221,000. All the houses will have access to filtered drinking water. Each home is 240 square feet, and has two windows and doors.

Munot, who runs a wholesale business of cloth and wheat, said he wanted to help people who were poor, living in slum and were good natured. He himself selected the people in the region who will be living in these houses.

"This is the new chapter in history and I hope that the same concept will be followed by the other rich communities,” he said. “We have some responsibilities towards our society and we tried to comply with it.”

Indian weddings typically see the two parties spend a lot of money in exchanging big gifts. But it is mostly unheard of for someone to put the money into better use.