Jamshedpur, Jan. 23: Chairman of Japan-based steel major Nippon Steel, N. Sasakawa, will be coming to Jharkhand on a three-day visit later this month.

State health secretary Shivendu said Sasakawa, who is also the goodwill ambassador of World Health Organisation for leprosy eradication and rehabilitation programmes, will also meet the chief minister Arjun Munda and senior government officials at Ranchi.

The chairman of the steel major, who is scheduled to reach Jamshedpur via Calcutta on January 31, will also attend a meeting with officials of the state health department and all the district leprosy officers at Ranchi on the second day of his visit.

The health secretary said that during his stay at the steel city, Sasakawa will visit the Bharat Sevashram Sangh and see the treatment and rehabilitation facilities for leprosy patients.

He will leave for Japan from Ranchi on February 2.

?Sasakawa will also lay the foundation stone for the construction of houses for the cured leprosy patients and also have an interaction with them,? he said.

The house will be constructed by an NGO and handed over to the leprosy patients, he added.

On the second day, Sasakawa will leave for Ranchi to take part in other programmes.

In Ranchi, the Nippon chairman will meet some government officials and then visit Brambay where he will inaugurate a hospital.

Incidentally, the hospital, which was actually made exclusively for the treatment of leprosy patients, has now been converted into a general hospital.

?This is the first leprosy hospital in the country to be converted into a general one,? Shivendu added.

A senior officer in the health department said Sasakawa would also take part in a sensitisation workshop on the treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients.

?Sasakawa is taking special interest in the leprosy eradication and rehabilitation programmes in Jharkhand because his father had spent some time in the treatment of leprosy patients at Brambay about 40 years ago,? the officer added.

He also hinted that if Sasakawa agrees, the state government might join hands with the Nippon Foundation to start some new programme for the rehabilitation of leprosy patients.