StanChart cards in Rotary alliance

India has become the third country in the world, after United States of America (USA) and Japan, to have a special co-branded credit card for members of the Rotary International (RI) movement in India in alliance with the issuer, Standard Chartered credit cards.

This special credit card was meant exclusively for the Rotarians and every time the credit card was used, quarter per cent of the amount would be contributed the Rotary fund, Sushil Gupta, RI director, told Business Standard on the sidelines of the RI centenary celebration and the Rotary Institute in Kolkata.

"Till date, I understand 6000 out of 90,000 Rotarians were using this card and I hope it would be used by the rest soon. Their contribution will raise funds for charity to the tune of around $100,000", said Gupta.

Standard Chartered would not charging any extra fee for this exclusive series issue under contract with RI-India, added Gupta.

Polio eradication continued to be the prime project of RI in India. Healthcare, literacy and water management had been identified as other major areas of focus in the next few years, said Glenn E Estess, president of RI, also in Kolkata for the event.

"RI's underlying concern continues to be to maintain peace and goodwill among different countries wherever the Rotary movement has a presence", added Estess.

The primary objective of RI today was to identify problems relevant to a particular community and arrange for funding to address that need, explained Estess to Business Standard.

The polio eradication programme in India, being executed as part of the government programme, had been underwritten to the extent of $600 million for vaccination.

"The rest has been done by the government and RI is hopeful about completely eradicating polio from India within the next year", said Estess.

Gupta pointed that besides funding, the thousands of man-hours and expertise put in by Rotarians were their major contribution to social welfare project. "For every Rs 1 Rotarians donate, they put in another Rs 5 in the form of their expertise and time", said Gupta.

On the national immunisation day against polio in February this year, around 1000 overseas Rotarians visited India and served at clinics and project sites.

In West Bengal, RI had part-funded several hundred small scale houses as well as scores of vocational centres and rural clinics at rural locations.

"Funding for more projects and allotment would be done in the next few months through panchayats", said Gupta.

The Indian arm of RI will be organising an international conference on literacy in Chennai soon to chalk out a road map for projects of Rotary International and other non-governmental organisations to achieve total literacy by 2015.