5th tranche of electoral bonds sale from Oct 1: FinMin

New Delhi: The finance ministry Thursday said the fifth tranche of electoral bonds sale will take place from October 1-10.

Electoral bonds are being pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding.

"State Bank of India (SBI), in the 5th phase of sale, has been authorised to issue and encash electoral bonds through its 29 authorised branches with effect from October 1 to 10," the ministry said in a statement.

The number of SBI branches authorised to sale electoral bonds increased from 11 to 29 for the 5th tranche.

The 29 specified SBI branches are in cities like New Delhi, Gandhinagar, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Mumbai, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chennai, Kolkata and Guwahati.

The government had notified the Electoral Bond Scheme in January this year.

As per provisions of the scheme, electoral bonds may be purchased by a person, who is a citizen of India or entities incorporated or established in India.

Registered political parties that have secured not less than 1 percent of the votes polled in the last election of the Lok Sabha or legislative assembly will be eligible to receive electoral bonds.

The sale of first batch of electoral bonds took place from March 1-10, 2018. The second phase was launched from April 2-10. The third phase took place during May 1-10 and the fourth tranche was launched from July 2-11

SBI is the only authorised bank to issue such bonds. A person being an individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly, with other individuals.

An electoral bond will be valid for 15 days from the date of issue. No payment would be made to any payee political party if the bond is deposited after expiry of the validity period.

The bond deposited by any eligible political party into its account would be credited on the same day.