Massive printing wastage as lower denomination electoral bonds find few takers

Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 bonds comprise less than 0.5% of total electoral bonds sold

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In the last two years, just 47 electoral bonds of Rs 1,000 denomination and 70 bonds of Rs 10,000 value were sold, while 2.65 lakh bonds each of the two lowest denominations were printed, reveals a response from State Bank of India to an application made under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

According to the response to an RTI query made by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd), in the 13 phases of the sale of bonds, a total of 12,452 bonds were sold amounting to a total value of Rs 6,210.40 crore, of which 91.81 per cent of the amount was through bonds of Rs 1 crore denomination. The remaining 7.91 per cent of the amount came from bonds of denomination of Rs 10 lakh. 

The other denominations made a miniscule contribution to the total value of the bonds sold. A total of 93,000 bonds of Rs 1 lakh denomination were printed by the India Security Press, Nasik, and 1,722 such bonds were sold. In all, 26,600 bonds of Rs 10 lakh denomination were printed and 4,911 of the bonds were sold. As regards the highest denomination bonds of Rs 1 crore, 14,650 bonds were printed and 5,702 were sold. In all, 6,64,250 bonds were printed, and 12,452 were sold in the 13 phases of the scheme.

Batra said the statistics revealed that there has been a huge wastage of money in printing bonds of Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 denominations. “This speaks of poor planning by the government in operationalising the electoral bonds scheme,” he said.

According to the activist, an analysis of the information provided shows that the printing cost of each electoral bond is Rs 25 plus 12 per cent GST. Also, he said, the commission levied by the SBI on sale as well as redemption of bonds is paid by the government, in other words, by the taxpayers. The total bank commission of sale and redemption in all 13 phases worked out to Rs 3,47,599,70– Rs 3.47 crore, excluding GST charges, he said.