Hi Karthik,
Thank you for a quite complete reply of what you have done. It would have been good to have had that in your initial post.
I think this is where your confusion is coming in. SM71 in *not* a NW71. SM71 is based on NW702 (EHP2) and the VA does still exist there. I'm staring at my VA in SM71 SP13 as I write.
If you follow the links that show how to install reader credentials with VA you should be fine.
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/fe/e8cc48abee49f082dfbd5b45d98dd4/content.htm
Kindest Regards,
Amerjit