Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked banks to help create one lakh ‘Swachhta Entrepreneurs’ in a year by financing cleanliness and waste management ventures.

Asking banks to become ‘agents of social transformation’, Modi said the banks need to take up social causes and adopt a charter for the nation’s development.

"Can we create Swachhta Entrepreneurs? There is immense scope in solid waste management and waste water treatment," Modi said in his address on the occasion of ICICI’s Digital Village to the nation, which marked 60 years of the ICICI group.

Modi said Akodara in Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district (chosen by ICICI Bank as a ‘Digital Village’) had a cattle hostel, which had contributed immensely to improving incomes and cleanliness in the village.

"There are people from a village in Sabarkantha who have joined us. This village is unique because it also has a cattle hostel," he said. "More villages across India would adopt this model soon," added Modi.