Electoral bonds: Ramco Cement's ₹54 crore donation is over 15% of its FY23 net profit

Several companies have donated substantive amounts as electoral bonds when measured against a key financial metric like net profit or profit after tax (PAT), according to a CNBC-TV18 analysis of the data uploaded by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on its website.

For instance, Ramco Cements donated ₹54 crore in electoral bonds. The amount is more than 15% of the cement major's FY23 profit after tax (PAT) of ₹342 crore. Likewise, NCC Ltd donated ₹60 crore, which is nearly 10% of its FY23 PAT of ₹610 crore.

However, a donation of ₹376 crore by Vedanta is just 2.6% of its FY23 net profit of ₹14,503. Similarly, JSPL's ₹123 crore is just over 3% of the ₹3,174 crore PAT the steel major reported in FY23.

As per the direction of the Supreme Court, the SBI on Tuesday evening submitted to the Election Commission the details of entities, which had purchased the now-scrapped electoral bonds, and the political parties which received them. The SBI has issued electoral bonds worth ₹16,518 crore in 30 tranches since the inception of the scheme in 2018.

The Supreme Court, however, in a landmark verdict on February 15, scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and recipients.