Made no promises for Amethi on IT: Bill Gates

PATNA: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates today denied media reports that he had made any promise in the field of IT sector during his visit to Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Gates said the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had accorded priority to help contain and eradicate infectious diseases and focus on developing ways to fight and prevent enteric and diarrhoeal diseases, pneumonia, tuberculoisis and kala-azar in Bihar.

"I did not make any promise in the IT sector in Amethi... In fact, I have not spoken anything on the IT during the past one week", Gates told mediapersons after the Foundation and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar government initialled a Memorandum of Cooperation on the work to fight infectious diseases in Bihar.

Asked whether he harboured plans to make Bihar an IT hub, Gates said his visit to the state for the first time today was aimed at signing of the MoC to fight infectious diseases.

"We may be discussing these things during the course of time", he said and congratulated the chief minister and his government for the efforts being made to counter infectious diseases.