Electoral bonds to help government check black money in political funding

With an aim to clean up political funding, the government has unveiled Electoral bonds with a shelf-life of 15 days and that can be purchased only from specified branches of State Bank of India.
 
Government said that the political parties can only encash the bonds through a designated bank account. The bonds, an alternative to cash donations to political parties will be available for 10 days in each months of January, April, July and October.
 
While announcing the contours of the scheme, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the bonds will not carry donor's name but the purchaser will have to fulfil KYC norms at the bank. These bonds can be bought for any value, in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh or Rs 1 crore.
 
This move is aimed to make the political funding more transparent as presently all the funding are in the name of anonymous cash donations.
 
The introduction of political bonds is another move by the government to flush the black money off the system after note ban.
 
Jaitley first announced the concept of electoral bonds in his 2017-18 Budget speech. He also said that those registered political parties which has secured at least 1 per cent vote in the last election are eligible for these bonds.
 
The Finance Minister also added that, every party will have to give a single bank account number to the Election Commission and have to encash the bond within 15 days of purchasing it. These bonds would be an interest-free bearer instrument in the nature of a promissory note.
 
"The donor will know which party he/she is depositing the money for and the political party has to file a return with the Election Commission," Jaitley said, adding that this process will ensure clean money and transparency in the funding system.