Prime Minister Narendra Modi will declare India open defection free on Wednesday evening on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi 150th birth anniversary. A single-use plastic ban by several state governments and departments came into force in some parts of the country even as the Centre clarified no new order on the matter was issued.Rural India and its villages have declared themselves ‘open defecation free’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary Wednesday."Today the whole world is appreciating and awarding us (for) providing toilets to over 60 crore people in 60 months by building over 11 crore toilets. The world is amazed by this," Modi said."However, this achievement is just a milestone and we should not stop here. The movement has to continue," he added.Modi said that sanitation and the conservation of environment and animals were dear to Mahatma Gandhi. "Plastic is a major threat to all of them, so we have to achieve the goal to eradicate 'single-use plastic' from the country by 2022," he said."Today, rural India has declared itself open defection-free. This is a great achievement of the Swachh Bharat movement, which has the people's participation," Modi said, addressing village heads of 20,000 villages in the country.