Electoral bonds find few takers, only 905 bonds worth Rs 440cr bought since launch

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

Electoral bonds are finding few takers and the proof of this is declining issuance and subscription, BusinessLine reports.

Since the launch of the scheme earlier this year by Arun Jaitley while presenting the Union Budget, a little more than 900 electoral bonds have been issued which amounts to only Rs 440 crore.

A total of 445 bonds amounting to Rs 222 crore were issued in the first tranche in March this year, it came down to 256 bonds and Rs 115 crore in the second tranche and even further down to 204 bonds of Rs 101.40 crore in the third tranche, according to Finance Ministry data given in response to a Right to Information (RTI) request by the paper.

“Three tranches of electoral bonds have been issued till May 31, 2018. Electoral bonds would be issued or purchased for any value in multiples of ₹1,000, ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore,” the Finance Ministry said, adding that it does not maintain data on the number of bonds purchased in each denomination.

In a bid to make political funding transparent, electoral bonds were introduced this Budget.

These bonds are issued by a notified bank for specified denominations. People who want to donate to a political party can buy these bonds by making payments digitally or through cheque and can gift the bond to a registered political party.

The party can convert these bonds back into money via their bank accounts. The bank account used must be the one notified to the Election Commission and the bonds may have to be redeemed within a prescribed time period.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), nearly 70 percent of the Rs 11,300 crore in party funding over an 11-year period came from unknown sources.

The Budget also reduced the disclosure limit to Rs 2,000 and insists that any amount over this must be paid through cheque or the digital mode to prompt donors to take the banking route to donate, with their identity captured by the issuing authority, in order to cleanse the system of political funding.