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HYDERABAD, India, Nov 14 (AFP) - Microsoft founder Bill Gates arrived here on the last leg of his four day visit to India with plans to invest 100 million dollars in the firm's research and development centre, an official said Thursday.

The chairman of Microsoft, who arrived in the southern information technology hub late Wednesday night, will discuss detais for the expansion of his company's Hyderabad unit, Microsoft's first research and development centre outside the United States.

It was set up in 1998 and plays a critical role in developing the company's Internet-based technologies.

Soon after his arrival, Gates said Microsoft would increase its research and development staff levels in Hyderabad from the current 159 to 500 by 2005.

Thursday morning, Gates met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and senior bureaucrats to discuss information technology innovations.

On Tuesday, during his visit to New Delhi Gates unveiled plans to invest 400 million dollars in India over the next three years.

Gates' visit to Hyderabad has as much to do with philanthropy as with information technology.

His itinenary in Hyderabad, state capital of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, will include a tour of a village clinic to launch the second phase of a 25-million-dollar immunization programme, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The programme will make the hepatitis-B vaccine available free of cost to some 500,000 children in the state.

Gates is scheduled to leave later Thursday for the United States. 

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