The Ministry of Finance announced that the second phase of the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018, a new scheme for ‘transparent’ political funding, from 2nd April to 10th April 2018. In the 2nd Phase of sale, State Bank of India (SBI) has been authorized to issue and encash Electoral Bonds through its 11 Authorised Branches w.e.f. 02.04.2018 to 10.04.2018.
Earlier, the Government of India had notified the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 on 2nd January 2018. As per the provisions of the Scheme, Electoral Bonds may be purchased by a person, who is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India. While notifying the scheme, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley described electoral bonds as a “substantial improvement in transparency over the present system of no transparency.”
As per the scheme, a person being an individual can buy Electoral Bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
Political Parties registered under Section 29A of Representation of People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) & which secured not less than 1 % of the votes polled in the last General Election to the House of People or Legislative Assembly of the State, shall be eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds.
The Electoral Bonds shall be encashed by an eligible Political Party only through a Bank account with the Authorized Bank.
“It may be noted that Electoral Bonds shall be valid for fifteen days from the date of issue and no payment shall be made to any payee Political Party if the Electoral Bond is deposited after the expiry of the validity period,” the Ministry of Finance tweeted Today.
The Electoral Bond deposited by an eligible Political Party in its account shall be credited on the same day, the tweet said.
The first batch of electoral bonds was released for ten days between 1-10 March.
