Data: The analysis of Electoral Bonds sold in January 2020
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 28, 2020
Access here Comprehensive Data on Electoral Bonds (as of February 2024)
The 13th phase of electoral bonds were sold in January 2020. More than ₹ 80 crore worth bonds were sold during this phase. Here is a detailed analysis of the electoral bonds sold in January 2020.
The13 phase of the sale of Electoral Bonds under Electoral
Bond Scheme-2018, took place during 13-22 January 2020. The Governmentof India made an announcement to this effect on 09 January 2020. The State Bank of India main Branches of 29cities across the country were authorized for the sale of the Electoral Bonds. Thisis the first sale cycle of Electoral Bonds for the year 2020.
Total
worth of bonds purchased less than the previous phase
Atotal of ₹ 81.67 crores worth of Electoral Bonds was purchased in the 13 phase. This is significantly lower that the Electoral Bonds purchased in theprevious phase i.e. 12 phase during 01 October to 10 October 2019.During that phase ₹ 231.93 crores worth of bonds were purchased. The 13 phase is the third from last in terms of the amount purchased. Only the amountof bonds purchased in the 4 & 11 phase was lessthan the amount in the 13 phase.
Highest
purchases made were of ₹1 crore Denomination
As explained
previously by Factly, Electoral Bonds are available in 5denominations – ₹ 1 thousand, 10 thousand, 1 lakh, 10 lakhs & 1 crores.
The₹ 81.67 crores worth of electoral bonds purchased in January 2020 were throughthe purchase of 139 Electoral bonds. There were no purchases made for the bondsof lower denomination i.e. ₹ 1 thousand & ₹10 thousand. A total of 27 bondsof ₹ 1 Lakh and 34 of ₹ 10 lakh denomination were purchased. More than half ofthe total bonds purchased i.e. 78 electoral bonds were of ₹1 croredenomination.
In
January 2020, highest purchase of Electoral Bonds in New Delhi
Inthis phase, the purchase of electoral bonds was made in SBI Main Branches ofonly 7 cities out of the authorized 29 cities. The highest total value ofpurchases was in New Delhi where ₹ 22.05 crores worth Electoral Bonds werepurchased from SBI’s New Delhi Main Branch.
Thisis followed by Lucknow and Kolkata where ₹ 20 crores and ₹15.37 crores worthbonds were purchased respectively. Mumbai, which otherwise records the highestamount reported purchases of only ₹13 crores in January 2020. Bhubaneshwar,Jaipur and Gandhinagar are the remaining cities, where the electoral bond purchaseswere made. Bonds worth ₹ 7 crores, ₹ 3.25 crore and ₹1 crore respectively werepurchased in these cities.
Electoral
Bonds redeemed in only 3 cities
Whilethe purchases were made in 7 cities, the bonds were redeemed in only threecities – New Delhi, Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar.
All
the bonds purchased in January 2020 were redeemed
Forthe third successive phase, all the electoral Bonds purchased were redeemed bythe political parties.
Asper the guidelines, the electoral bonds need to be redeemed within fifteen daysof the purchase. Any electoral bond that are is not redeemed within this periodis credited to Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF).
Overthe 13 phases, there are 5 such phases where in all the electoral bonds havebeen redeemed by the political parties within the stipulated time. The highestunredeemed amount was in the 3 phase (May’2018) where in 10 bondsworth ₹ 10 crores were not redeemed. The highest number of bonds was in 9 phase i.e. during April’2019 where in 74 bonds worth ₹ 5.05 crore was not redeemed,and the amount was transferred to PMNRF.
Lower
purchases due to single election
Theonly election that took place closer to the 13 phase was the DelhiAssembly elections. The lower volume of electoral bonds purchased duringJanuary 2020 could be because of this reason. During earlier phases, either theLok Sabha general election was scheduled or some of the bigger states went topolls.
NewDelhi, where most of the Political parties especially the National parties havetheir Bank account is traditionally the city where highest amount of electoralbonds is redeemed. Since the Assembly elections were also held in Delhi,  majority of the electoral bonds were redeemedhere.
Furthermore,the beneficiaries of this phase of electoral bonds will only be known after thepolitical parties submit their financial statements for 2019-20, during the latterpart of year. Factly has earlier written a
story explaining how people have to wait for a long periodof time to know about the beneficiaries of electoral bonds.