Focus on education, healthcare in state

Ranchi: The US is keen on investing in Jharkhand that has the potential to grow, said the country's consul general on Thursday.
Dr Craig Hall, who was addressing a gathering at Xavier's Institute of Social Services (XISS) in Ranchi on Thursday, said earlier it was tough to do business with India, "but there has been a marked improvement in the Indo-US relations recently and the countries are aiming to take the annual bilateral trade volume to $500 billion from $105billion".
"Last November, Jharkhand was ranked at the third place in terms of ease of doing business in a survey conducted by the World Bank. People from the US are interested in coming to India and they will be happy to come to a state where doing business is easy," he said.
Hall is on a two-day visit to educational institutions in Jharkhand. He offered support from the office of US consul in facilitating trade and commerce activities apart from education and healthcare, which is the country's focus area. "There has been an understanding with the government of India to conduct joint research on cancer, but going a step ahead, we are working with the government of Jharkhand on infectious diseases," he said.
A team of American scientists is partnering with the state government to improve public hospitals and conduct research on disease control programme, particularly malaria, dengue and other infectious diseases that have been taking a huge toll on people annually.
Quoting a 2010 study conducted by Mckinsey, Hall said by 2030 India and Indian states would no longer remain the way they are now. "It will develope remarkably and students must prepare themselves keeping that in mind," he said.