The Smart Card Project is helping nearly 12.7 million poor people in Andhra Pradesh to get timely payment of wages It was conceived as a vehicle to promote financial inclusion by taking banking services to the unbanked poor, harnessing information and communications technology to ensure the benefits of public welfare programmes reach those they are intended for by plugging leakages. The Andhra Pradesh Smart Card Project, launched in 2007, is...

-PTI   Questions were raised on Sunday about the use of funds donated by the public to Team Anna with Swami Agnivesh alleging that money was deposited in the trust run by Arvind Kejriwal from which the names of major team members were missing, a claim dismissed as made “out of anger”. Besides Team Anna detractor Swami Agnivesh, another former member ‘Waterman’ Rajinder Singh also raised the issue urging Mr. Kejriwal to come...

-PTI   Anna Hazare’s team today found itself at the wrong end of the graft-and-transparency stick with a former group associate, Swami Agnivesh, raising questions about possible funds diversion by Arvind Kejriwal. Team Anna member Manish Sisodia claimed Agnivesh was acting “out of anger” at being removed from the team after a video clip purportedly showed him asking a person to deal strongly with Hazare. According to Agnivesh, around Rs 80 lakh that supporters...

-The Indian Express   On at least 12 occasions, Kiran Bedi appears to have inflated her travel expenses while charging the institutions and NGOs inviting her for seminars, even as she used her own travel discount as a gallantry award winner — keeping the rest of the money for her own purposes. Bedi defends herself, saying that she was travelling less comfortably than she was entitled to, and using the money left...

For the first time in the country, the Andhra Pradesh government is launching special courts for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on November 1 to try cases of misappropriation and Fraud being committed by staff during its implementation. The special courts can impose a two-year jail term apart from ordering recovery of the amount deFrauded by the accused officials if proved guilty. The courts, to be set...