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Poll bonds worth ₹1k-crore sold in 29th tranche, says SBI
With sale of 386 bonds worth ₹359 crore, Hyderabad had the highest share (35.68%) of the eleven SBI branches where such sales are possible
A total of 1,109 electoral bonds worth ₹1,006.03 crore were sold in the 29th tranche of electoral bonds issued between November 6 and November 20, ahead of and during the Assembly elections in five states, the State Bank of India (SBI) said in a right to information (RTI) response on Wednesday.
With sale of 386 bonds worth ₹359 crore, Hyderabad had the highest share (35.68%) of the eleven SBI branches where such sales are possible. Hyderabad is the capital of Telangana which went to polls on November 30, ten days after the sale period ended.
Three SBI branches — Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi — accounted for the sale of more than 79% of the bonds, as per the response to the RTI request filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (retd). Around 997 bonds, or 89.9%, were issued in denominations of ₹1 crore.
Mumbai and Delhi saw sales of 263 and 212 bonds, respectively, for ₹259.3 crore (25.77%) and ₹182.75 crore (18.17%).
All of the 1,109 bonds issued in the 29th tranche were encashed. Around 963 bonds worth ₹882.8 crore (87.75% of the total value encashed) were encashed in the Delhi branch while 95 bonds worth ₹81.5 crore were encashed in Hyderabad.
In the 28th tranche, SBI sold 2,012 electoral bonds worth ₹1,148.38 crore between October 4 and October 13. At that time too, Hyderabad saw the highest sale of bonds worth ₹377.63 crore followed by Kolkata at ₹225.58 crore, according to an earlier RTI response received by Batra. Of this, 2,007 bonds were encashed with Delhi leading the pack at ₹800.96 crore followed by Kolkata at ₹171.28 crore and Hyderabad at ₹83.63 crore.
The SBI is the only bank authorised to issue and encash electoral bonds. Currently, 25 political parties have the special current accounts with the bank that are required to encash the electoral bonds donated to them.
