Kolkata: US-based Bill Gates Foundation, founded by Microsoft boss Bill Gates, would give over Rs 900 crore assistance for AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome) prevention in India over a period of five years.

Melinda Gates, wife of the most successful IT-entrepreneur in the world, today (Jan 25, 2004) said in Kolkata that the Foundation would give a staggered assistance of 200 million US Dollars for prevention of AIDS in India over five years.

Gates said this during her visit to Sonagachi, the largest red light area in the metropolis, to see how the World Health Organisation's model project was working.

"Social evils must be done away with to overcome the AIDS menace," Gates said.

Mrinal Dutta, the co-ordinator of Durbar Mahila Samannoy Samiti, an NGO working at Sonagachi, said that Gates wanted to see how the project was working here so that it could work as a model at other brothels in the country.

At least 9,000 sex workers, of which 3,000 are floating, work at Sonagachi, Dutta said.