First sale of electoral bonds via SBI to begin from March 1
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his Budget speech in February 2017, announced the introduction of the bonds
The wait for investing in electoral bonds will ve over soon, as the Finance Ministry today said that the first sale of electoral bonds will commence from March 1, 2018, through country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) network.
"State Bank of India (SBI) has been authorised to issue and encash electoral bonds initially at its 4 authorised branches. The first issue of the scheme will be opened in March 2018 in place of January 2018 for the first quarter of 2018," the ministry said in a tweet.
Accordingly, the sale will begin on March 1, 2018, and will be available for a period of ten days.
"The bond shall be encashed by an eligible political party only through a bank account with the authorised bank," said the ministry.
It further said that a person an individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
On January 02, the Government of India (GoI) has notified the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 vide Gazette notification.
According to the ministry, electoral bonds would be a bearer instrument like Promissory Notes and an interest-free banking instrument.
According to 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.
A purchaser will be allowed to buy electoral bonds only on fulfilment of all KYC norms and by making payment from a bank account.
However, the purchaser will not carry name of the payee.
These bonds will have a life of just 15 days, and during this time only a citizen can make a donation to political parties.
Parties, whom a citizen chooses to make donation, must be registered under section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and have secured not less than 1% of votes polled in the last general or Legislative Assembly elections.
Interest-free electoral bonds for political funding can be purchased from SBI in multiples of Rs1,000, Rs10,000, Rs1 lakh, Rs10 lakh and Rs1 crore.
Additionally, a 30 days period shall be specified by the government in the year of general election.
Eligible party can encash the bonds only through a designated bank account with an authorised bank. Investments in electoral bonds will be exempted from tax.
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