'Avoid water pollution during immersion of Ganesh idol'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday urged people to work for preventing water pollution during immersion of Ganesh idols by ensuring that plastic and other waste does not go into the sea.

The PM is on the one-day tour of Maharashtra which he began by taking darshan of Lord Ganesh in suburban Vile Parle in Mumbai.

"Just like Lokmanya Tilak had said that 'Swarajya' is my birth right. As we are approaching 75 years of our independence, we should say 'surajya' is our duty," the prime minister said.

The PM was addressing a gathering at Jio World Centre in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) after inaugurating three metro lines for Mumbai. He also inaugurated a state-of-the-art metro coach, the first metro coach under 'Make in India'.

"I would like to give a suggestion for 'One Indian-One Pledge'. We need to protect the environment and do away with single-use plastic. We have to avoid water pollution. During Ganesh Visarjan, heaps of plastic and other waste go into the sea. We have to stop that," the prime minister said.

The PM said the NDA government has taken several "historic and unprecedented decisions" during the first 100 days of his second tenure.

He also said the time has come to implement the "One Indian-One Pledge" initiative.

The annual Ganesh festival, the trademark of Maharashtra, is held in the Hindu calendar month of 'Bhadrapad' for 10/11 days.