NEW DELHI: Donors to political parties have purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 222 crore after the bonds went on sale at the start of this month.
“The amount collected from the sale of electoral bonds under the first issue of the scheme is Rs 2.22 billion as on March 9, 2018,” Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Friday.
Electoral bonds were introduced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Union Budget 2017-18 as a measure to clean up funding to political parties. The bonds allow donors to pay political parties with banks as an intermediary, without disclosing their identity. They can be encashed by an eligible political party only through a designated bank account.
The government notified the Electoral Bond Scheme in January this year and the maiden issue was open for subscription from March 1 to March 10.
The bonds were available for purchase only at designated branches of State Bank of India, which is the sole authorised bank to issue and encash the Electoral Bearer Bonds under the scheme.
The validity of the bonds is 15 days, during which it can be used for making a donation to registered political parties, with the rider that the parties must have secured more than one per cent of the votes polled in the last Lok Sabha or Assembly election.
The bonds will be next available for purchase in April, July and October, for periods of 10 days each. The government will notify an additional 30-day period of sale in an year when a general election is to be held.
While the electoral bonds keep the name of the donor anonymous, they can be purchased only after making a payment through a KYC-compliant account.
The government claims that this process will bring transparency to political funding and will stop the circulation of unaccounted cash in the name of political funding.
Donors remain anonymous
The bonds will be next available for purchase in April, July and October, for periods of 10 days each.
While the electoral bonds keep the name of the donor anonymous, they can be purchased only after making a payment through a KYC-compliant account.