New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday authorised 29 branches of the State Bank of India to issue and encash the electoral bonds to be sold for 10 days from April 1 to 10.
Its notification says these bonds shall be valid for 15 calendar days from the date of issue and no payment shall be made to any political party if the bonds are deposited after expiry of the validity period. The electoral bonds deposited by an eligible political party in its account shall be credited on the same day.
This is the third tranche of the electoral bonds to be issued since 2019.
The authorised branches include Parliament Street branch, Mumbai Main branch on Mumbai Samachar Marg, Panaji branch in Goa opposite Hotel Mandovi, for Goa and Lakshadweep, Jaipur main branch in Rajasthan, Bhopal main branch in TT Nagar in Madhya Pradesh, Badam Bagh, Srinagar branch in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Gandhinagar branch in Gujarat for Gujarat, Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, and Chandigarh branch for Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.
Last Friday, the Supreme Court had cleared issue of the bonds, dismissing the petitions of two NGOs, finding the safeguards for their issue as "sufficient."
Any person can buy the electoral bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals. They can name the political party registered under the Representation of People Act and which had secured not less than one per cent of votes polled in the last General election to the Lok Sabha or the Legislative Assembly.
