Prime Minister Narendra Modi set out plans Friday to ensure all Indians can have a bank account, blaming the high level of suicides among farmers on their inability to pay back money-lenders.

"Why are our farmers committing suicide? It's because they have to take money at huge interest rates from the money-lenders," he said in a speech on India's independence day.

"We will have a prime minister's people wealth scheme so that even the poorest of the poor can have a bank account of their own."