The Andhra Pradesh government has set a target of providing smart cards to 10.8 million white ration card holders supported by handheld biometric machines in each of the 25,000 gram panchayats in the state by August next year.

Members of the women self-help groups would be trained as banking correspondents to handle transactions of these families, including distribution of old-age pensions and disbursement of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme, apart from banking.

A pilot scheme under which villages in six mandals of Warangal district and two mandals of Karimnagar district, where the public sector banks in close association with the state rural development department have been handling the financial transactions of poor families through the smart card system, would form the basis for the statewide implementation, according to state rural development minister G Chinna Reddy.

Several banks including State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Axis Bank, Union Bank of India and AP Grameen Vikas Bank are involved in the pilot scheme.