Skip to main content

Govt May Impose Time Limit For Redeeming Electoral Bonds

POLITICAL FUNDING Move to ensure that the proposed instrument is not misused as a parallel currency Precautions will be built in to ensure the anonymity of the donors' contribution

The government is plan ning to impose a time limit for redeem ing the electoral bonds announced in the Budget to ensure that the proposed instrument of political funding is not misused as a parallel currency .
A senior government official in volved in framing of the new mechanism told ET on condition of ano nymity that the bonds will have to be redeemed within a specified number of days to ensure the bonds are credited into the designated banks ac counts of political parties at the earliest. “There will be a fixed time window for redeeming the electoral bonds. In fact, this time window will be in terms of days, not months or years,“ the official said.

This will ensure that the proposed electoral bonds do not become a par allel currency for exchange between multiple entities, a prospect that could defeat their entire purpose, the official said.As announced in the Budget, the bonds “shall be redeemable only in the designated account of a registered political party“ to ensure the corporate funds are credited to registered political parties at the earliest after the bonds are purchased by the donors.

Although the government is yet to frame exact contours of a scheme for the administration of bonds, officials said that precautions will be built in to ensure the anonymity of the donors' contributions.

The officials suggested that bank secrecy norms will ensure that the identities of bond purchasers are kept confidential. However, the corporate entities may have to declare the value of electoral bond purchases in their regular filings with the Registrar of Companies. The political parties will also be required to declare only the “total number of bonds“ in their incomes to ensure individual identities of the donors are not compromised.

04TH FEBRUARY,2017,THE ECONOMIC TIMES, NEW-DELHI
 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...