NEW DELHI: The electoral bond scheme for political donations is a significant improvement over cash-based, non-transparent practices where the donor, donee and quantum of donations and the nature of expenditure are all undisclosed, finance minister Arun Jaitley said in a blog on Sunday. "The effort, therefore, is to run down any alternative system which is devised to cleanse the political funding mechanism," he said.Better funding is necessary as elections cost money and there are expenses year around by way of offices and staff. "Besides expenditure of individual candidates, political parties have to spend money on election campaigns, publicity, tours, travels and election-related establishments. A bond can only be encashed in a pre-declared account of a political party. Every party in its returns will have to disclose the amount of donations it has received through electoral bonds to the Election Commission ," he said, adding that the government is willing to consider all suggestions to cleanse political funding.

Source: Times of India January 07, 2018 21:45 UTC