Narendra Modi's government is travelling across India on a drive to collect iron for a giant statue of Sardar Patel being built in Gujarat.

The 182-metre statue of India's iron man, tipped to be the world's tallest, is coming up in the middle of the Narmada river.

Modi, who is running for prime minister in 2014, had announced in October that 700 tonnes of iron would be collected from five lakh villages for the statue.

For this, Gujarat ministers, bureaucrats and IPS officers are visiting states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Orissa, urging people to donate iron.

They are carrying specially designed boxes with the message "Sardar ne desh ko ek banaya, hum desh ko shresth banayenge (Sardar Patel united the nation, we will make it the best)." -- NDTV