New Delhi: The Union government has incurred a bill of nearly Rs 14 crore, to be paid with taxpayers’ money, on printing and managing electoral bonds according to data revealed in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query filed by transparency activist, retired Commodore Lokesh Batra.
Of the total, Rs 12,04,59,043 has been charged as ‘commission for the sale of electoral bonds’ over 30 phases while Rs 1,93,73,604 account for the printing costs of the bonds. The commission amount refers to the money charged by the State Bank of India to sell and manage the electoral bonds. An additional Rs 6,720 has been levied for ‘device to verify Mask-A print security’, the Department of Economic Affairs’ RTI response said.
Nashik-based India Security Press, tasked with printing these bonds, also revealed the denomination-wise breakup for printing bonds worth Rs 1,000, Rs,10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.
- 2,65,000 electoral bonds of Rs 1,000;
- 2,65,000 bonds of Rs 10,000;
- 93,000 bonds of Rs 1 lakh;
- 26,000 bonds of Rs 10 lakh; and
- 33,000 bonds of Rs 1 crore.
It may be noted that the cost of printing and managing these bonds is not borne by the donors or the recipients but by the government and, by extension, the taxpayers.
“The irony of the EB scheme is that while donors who buy bond are not required to pay any service charges (commission) to SBI and even printing cost of EBs, it is the government or ultimately, the tax-payers who bear this cost… for enabling transactions of ‘anonymous tax-free funding’ to political parties through the opaque Electoral Bonds Scheme 2018,” Batra said.
“In addition, there is a huge amount being spent on the use of government machinery and manpower for managing and operating EB scheme for the tax-free benefits of political parties at the tax-payers cost,” he added.
An earlier RTI filed by Batra also revealed that the Narendra Modi government printed 8,350 electoral bonds of Rs 1 crore each in 2024 alone, after the Supreme Court had already reserved its verdict on the constitutionality of the scheme in November 2023.
The cost of printing one electoral bond comes to Rs 25, with an additional 6% GST charged both by the Centre and the state governments, The Wire had reported.
The Supreme Court on February 15 had struck down the electoral bonds scheme. While calling it unconstitutional and in violation of the voters’ right to this information, the court had directed the SBI to furnish the details of the bonds to the EC.
