PATNA: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has $80 million worth partnership with Bihar government in health sector, has shown its interest in expanding cooperation in agriculture sector too. This was announced by the software czar and world’s leading philanthropist Bill Gates here on Wednesday after rounding off his day-long tour.
Gates, who was accompanied by his wife and Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates and a strong team, said the Foundation is doing well in Bihar and state government’s ambitions are quite good. “Our partnership is going at full speed. The great works being done here are lessons for other places in the world,” said a beaming Gates while lavishing praise on chief minister Nitish Kumar, sitting beside him.
Melinda was also very impressed. She said, “It is a pleasure working here. Bihar’s planning is incredible. We will have broad unity under the leadership of Mr Kumar.” She said she was very impressed with the good works in health sector, particularly immunization, vaccination and institutional delivery. “We are glad to have partnership with Bihar,” she added.
It was Bill Gates’ second visit to Bihar in less than a year. He last came here on May 12 last year and visited some villages. This time again, the couple and their team visited Sabjpura and Jamsaut villages under Danapur subdivision in Patna district to review the works funded by the foundation. They said they spoke to health workers, community workers, women and NGOs.
“Our main focus in on health but we are also interested in agriculture sector. We had some preliminary discussion and further talks will go on to find out ways for a partnership,” said Bill Gates. Nitish said the team, during their village visit, interacted with farmers also and later held talks with officials. “The Foundation has shown interest in seed improvement in agriculture sector,” he said adding he told Gates about Bihar’s agriculture roadmap.
The CM said the DMs of eight districts, where the health projects taken up by the Foundation are in progress, were also called here for meeting. He recalled that last year a memorandum of cooperation had reached between the Foundation and state government. The Foundation works through NGOs as per their methodology. They also suggest to the government the works to be done.
Gates, who earns $250 every second, that’s about $20 million a day and $7.8 billion a year, however, was non-committal on launching any poverty alleviation programme in Bihar. “There is still scope and need to improve our works here,” he said. Gates said if the government of India gives permission for introduction of new vaccine in Bihar, lives of hundreds of thousands of children could be saved. Earlier, the CM said some of functions like vaccinations come under the jurisdiction of the Centre.
The Microsoft founder has offered $110 million for introducing five-in-one vaccine in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Bill Gates favours introduction of pentavalent vaccine across five states including Bihar. “I feel excited talking about vaccination,” he said.