Chief minister Nitish Kumar shakes hands with Melinda Gates as Bill Gates (centre) looks on at the news meet in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, March 23: Ideas and Innovations, the two 'I's that made Bill Gates the toast of the modern world, have earned Nitish Kumar a pat on his back.

Today, Bill and Melinda Gates showered praise on him for the development in the health sector. Complimenting Nitish, Gates, the Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist, said the Bihar government was “more open to ideas and innovations” than any other state government in the country that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had worked with.

“The foundation is pleased to work in collaboration with the Nitish Kumar government. We have set some specific goals in terms of health indicators like nutrition, infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and the percentage of underweight children. The state government has shown some real good results in the past few years and is keen on working with us. Bihar is a unique place and we are hopeful that it will give lessons to other places in the coming few years,” Bill said.

His better half, Melinda, was also impressed with the Bihar government’s efforts. “They are open to new ideas and innovations. They share the ground realities with us. It has helped shape us the umbrella programme — Ananya — in the state. Today I went to a village and interacted with a lot of women. I was really impressed to see the lives of people, especially women and kids, are changing. The infant mortality rate has come down and there has been tremendous improvement in neo-natal care,” she said.

The foundation has selected seven national and international non-government organisations (NGOs) that will work together to improve healthcare delivery system in the state. The NGOs are working in eight districts of the state for the past three months.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar, who was present in the joint news conference, said the foundation had a unique and different way of functioning. “For example, they go to the primary health centres and other health institutions and observe how many patients are being treated. They later come with ideas to improve the facilities. They also suggest us ways to improve the services,” he said.