Over Rs 1,000 crore worth of electoral bonds were sold and encashed during the latest phase of the sale of the bonds, from November 6 to 20, stated an RTI reply by SBI. The maximum number of bonds were sold in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana which was among the five states that went to polls recently.
Electoral bonds worth Rs 10,06,03,10,000 were sold in the 29th phase of sale of bonds, and a total number of 1,109 bonds were sold, according to information provided by the State Bank of India, which is the sole authorised vendor of the bonds, in response to a Right to Information application filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd).
As much as 99.1023 per cent of the bonds sold were of Rs 1 crore denomination, and no bond of Rs 1,000 denomination was sold. Only one bond of Rs 10,000 denomination was sold. Bonds of Rs 1 lakh denomination accounted for Rs 23 lakh, and bonds worth Rs 10 lakh accounted for Rs 8.8 crore.
The Hyderabad branch of the bank sold 386 bonds in all, out of which 356 were of Rs 1 crore denomination, and the rest 30 were of Rs 10 lakh denomination. A total of 263 bonds were sold at the Mumbai branch, out of which 259 were of Rs 1 crore denomination, three of Rs 10 lakh denomination and one of Rs 10,000 denomination. The New Delhi branch sold 212 bonds, out of which 180 were of Rs 1 crore denomination, 27 of Rs 10 lakh denomination and five of Rs 1 lakh denomination.
Bonds worth Rs 359 crore were sold in the Hyderabad branch. Mumbai saw a sale of bonds worth Rs 259.3 crore, while bonds worth Rs 182.75 crore were sold in the Delhi branch.
The bank’s branch in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, which also went to polls in the recent round of Assembly elections, sold 45 bonds worth Rs 31.5 crore. In Chhattisgarh's Raipur, another state which had elections, 17 bonds worth Rs 5.75 crore were sold. In Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, which also had elections, only ten bonds worth Rs 10 lakh were sold.
Maximum bonds--963--were encashed at the New Delhi branch. While Hyderabad topped in the sale of bonds, only 95 bonds were encashed in the SBI branch in the city. As many as 30 bonds were encashed in the Bhubaneshwar branch, 16 in the Kolkata branch, and five in the Gangtok branch. As per the RTI response of the SBI, till date, 25 political parties have opened their account for the purpose of encashing electoral bonds.
