Govt notifies terms of electoral bonds to ensure clean political funding

The Union government outlined the broad framework of new 'electoral bonds' - a financial instrument to make anonymous donations to political parties, on Tuesday.However, new political parties will be ineligible to receive the political funds through electoral bonds.All citizens and "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 a statement in Lok Sabha.The bonds will be interest-free debt instruments resembling promissory notes where the SBI will be the custodian of the donor's funds until the political parties are paid."The purchaser would be allowed to buy electoral bond(s) only on due fulfillment of all the extant KYC [know your customer] norms and by making payment from a bank account. It will not carry the name of payee," Jaitley said.Political parties, ...