Govt notifies terms of electoral bonds to ensure clean political funding

Interest-free bonds for political funding, with 15-day validity, will be available at select SBI branches

The Union government on Tuesday notified a framework for electoral bonds — a financial instrument for making anonymous donations to political parties — to cleanse political funding. However, new political parties will be ineligible to receive funds through this route.

“A citizen of India or a body incorporated in India” can purchase electoral bonds from specified branches of State Bank of India (SBI) in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 100,000, Rs 1 million, and Rs 10 million by making payment from their bank accounts, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in the Lok Sabha.

“The element of transparency is