Bonds worth over Rs 550 crore sold in latest round: RTI

The latest round of controversial electoral bonds saw a sale of Rs 571.80 crore with parties encashing all bonds except for Rs 1.75 crore.

With this, bonds worth Rs 16,518.10 crore have been sold in 30 phases of bond sale since 2018 after its inception. The bonds which were not encashed was around Rs 25.10 crore and were transferred to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.

According to information received through RTI by transparency activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired) for the latest round, the SBI has sold 897 bonds out of which 540 bonds were of Rs one crore denomination. It also sold 314 bonds of Rs ten lakh each, 40 bonds of Rs one lakh each and three bonds of Rs 1,000.

Of the total bonds, 581 were purchased via digital mode while the rest 316 were bought physically. Of the bonds not encashed were 17 bonds of Rs 10 lakh each, five bonds of Rs one lakh each and three bonds of Rs 1,000 each.

The Kolkata branch recorded the highest sale of bonds worth Rs Rs 183.95 crore followed by Hyderabad Rs 133.20 crore and Chennai branch Rs 73 crore. The Bengaluru branch sold bonds worth Rs ten crore.

The New Delhi branch of the SBI topped the list of encashing bonds worth Rs 237.9 crore followed by Hyderabad branch Rs 138.20 crore and Kolkata branch Rs 130.45 crore. No bonds were encashed from the Bengaluru branch of the SBI.

In its reply to Batra, the SBI also said that 25 political parties have opened their account for the purpose of encashing electoral bonds till date. Accounts are being opened at branches after obtaining proper approval, it said.

In the previous phase of bond sale in November last year, bonds worth Rs 1006.03 crore were sold.

According to an audit report for 2022-23 submitted by the Congress, its donations through electoral bonds have seen a decline from Rs 236.09 crore to Rs 171.02 crore. Ruling BJP's figure for 2022-23 is not available at present.

A report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) had said that BJP’s income rose by 154.82 per cent to touch Rs 1,917.12 crore in 2021-22 against the previous fiscal, with close to 54 per cent of it coming from electoral bonds. It said 55.09 per cent or Rs 1811.94 crore of the total donations received by BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress and NCP were through electoral bonds while four other national parties CPI(M), CPI, BSP and NPP did not receive any funds through this instrument.