Fresh electoral bonds to go on sale from January 1; Mumbai sold most bonds so far

With the government announcing the 15th edition of sale of electoral bonds from the New Year, an analysis has shown that the highest amount of bond sale so far took place in the commercial capital of Mumbai while its encashment was in Delhi, the national capital.

Since 2018 when the electoral bond came into being, there were 14 phases of sales during which bonds worth Rs 6,492.68 crore have been sold while Rs 6,472.43 crore were encashed. The bonds which were not encashed amounting to around Rs 20.25 crore were transferred to PMNRF.

Electoral bonds are sold by 29 SBI branches and eligible parties could encash them only in these facilities.

The government on Tuesday announced that the 15th phase of electoral bond sale would take place between January 1 and 10. These bonds will be valid for 15 calendar days from the date of issue and no payment will be made to any payee party if the electoral Bond is deposited after expiry of the validity period.

The analysis by transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) based on RTI responses have shown that Rs 2,022.29 crore were sold in SBI branch Mumbai, which is 31.16% of the total sale, while Delhi had the highest encashment of Rs 5,003.70 crore.

Mumbai, which is home to several corporates, accounted for 31.16% of the electoral bonds that were sold followed by Kolkata (22.98% or Rs 1491.70 crore) and Delhi (14.67% or Rs 952.62 crore).

Interestingly, only 17 out of 29 branches had sold electoral bonds during this period.

When it came to encashing the bonds, the authorised SBI branch in New Delhi topped the list (77.31% or Rs 5,003.70 crore) indicating that the national capital followed by Hyderabad (9.31% or Rs 602.30 crore) and Bhubaneswar (4.84% or 313.50 crore).

On the other hand, the encashment in Mumbai, which sold the highest value of electoral bonds, was only 2.34% or Rs 151.13 core.

Among the cities, Mumbai sold the highest proportion of bonds with a value of Rs one crore (32.40% or 1,932 out of 5,981 bonds of Rs one crore value sold across India) followed by Kolkata (22.54% or 1,348) and New Delhi (14.90% or 891).

Delhi again topped the list when it came to encashing bonds with a value of Rs one crore with 78.37%.

For printing these bonds, the government has spent Rs 1.85 crore, while the SBI has received Rs 3.66 crore as commission for the sale of electoral bonds.