Your Money, Now Missing in Action

The Centre’s ‘Aapki Poonji, Aapka Adhikar’ campaign seeks to reunite citizens with unclaimed wealth lost in the labyrinth of banks, insurers and bureaucracy.

There exists, somewhere deep in the maze of India’s financial system, a treasure that belongs to everyone and no one at once. Imagine a vault containing Rs. 1.84 lakh crore - not stolen, not misplaced, but forgotten. This is the story of India’s unclaimed funds - money lying idle in banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, provident funds and dividend accounts.

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently launched the ‘Aapki Poonji, Aapka Adhikar’ (Your money, Your Right) campaign, she was acknowledging a paradox that defines modern finance: how can money exist safely in the system yet be out of reach of those who own it?

Hidden perils

The figures are staggering. About Rs. 75,000 crore from bank dormant accounts now sits with the Reserve Bank’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund. Another Rs. 14,000 crore belongs to forgotten insurance claims, Rs. 8,000 crore to inoperative provident fund accounts, Rs.3,000 crore to mutual funds, and about Rs. 84,000 crore to unclaimed shares and dividends. Together, they form a silent mountain of idle wealth - each rupee a story of delay, neglect, or loss of connection.

But beneath this narrative of state safekeeping lies a troubling truth: dormant accounts are tempting targets for fraud. There have been cases of insiders siphoning money from inactive accounts (including NRI accounts), exploiting the very trust customers place in banks. When an account goes quiet, it becomes vulnerable - not only to time and paperwork, but to deliberate manipulation.

The Finance Minister once compared these funds to a “ripe fruit” that hangs within legal reach but remains practically out of grasp. It’s an apt image. Money is transferred from banks to the RBI, from mutual funds to SEBI, from companies to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) - always “safe,” yet increasingly remote from the families who earned it.

This is not just India’s problem. Switzerland faced global outrage when dormant accounts linked to Holocaust victims were discovered decades later, leading to major legal reforms. The United States runs state-level unclaimed property programs that hold billions of dollars, while the UK’s Dormant Assets Scheme has reunited over £1 billion with rightful owners and used the rest for public good.  India, however, dwarfs all these examples in both scale and complexity, making the task of reclaiming funds even harder and more urgent.

Citizen vigilance

The current campaign carries both purpose and promise. Its ‘3 A’s’ - Awareness, Accessibility, and Action - aim to bridge the information gap that isolates citizens from their forgotten funds. But information alone is not enough. Many rural depositors have no idea such schemes exist. Elderly pensioners may lack digital skills. Heirs may not know where their parents banked or invested.

When a grandmother passed away, the legal heirs stumbled upon three forgotten post office accounts only through sheer persistence. It should not take detective work to claim one’s inheritance.

Citizens must learn not just how to reclaim funds but how to prevent them from going dormant. Simple steps help - sharing account details and nominations with family, updating addresses promptly, reviewing statements regularly, and closing unused accounts. Old cheque books and passbooks from inactive accounts should be destroyed. In today’s connected world, vigilance is a personal duty as much as a financial habit.

In many ways, this campaign completes the journey that began with Jan Dhan Yojana, UPI, and Direct Benefit Transfers. Those programs brought people into the financial system. This one ensures they stay connected to it - that inclusion does not fade into neglect.

And yet, the challenge extends beyond banks. Insurance companies hold thousands of crores in unpaid claims. Defunct employers sit on un-transferred provident fund balances. Even electricity boards, educational institutions, and landlords often hold long-forgotten security deposits. The web of unclaimed assets stretches far beyond what current data captures.

Institutional duty

The bigger question is whether institutions can move from recovery to prevention. Why wait for funds to go dormant when alerts could be sent before inactivity sets in? If banks can send instant UPI messages, can they not send a simple warning that an account is nearing dormancy? If Aadhaar can update KYC, can beneficiary nominations not be refreshed automatically?

Financial institutions must take more responsibility. Surprise audits, rather than pre-announced ones, could deter insider fraud. Customer outreach should go beyond automated emails; human contact still matters. The cost of maintaining dormant accounts must never outweigh the moral duty of protecting depositors’ money.

The minister’s assurance that “the money is absolutely safe; just bring your papers” is comforting. But for many, papers themselves are the problem. Rural heirs, widows, and nominees often struggle to produce documentation that institutions insist upon.

The three-month campaign, running till December 2025, is an opportunity for financial cleansing. Its success will depend on awareness, simplified claims, and swift action against fraudsters who exploit dormant accounts.

The Rs. 1.84 lakh crore represents the forgotten faith of citizens. Reclaiming them is not merely about restoring money but about restoring confidence in the financial system itself. But the true victory will come only when dormancy disappears altogether - when no account lies unclaimed, no heir remains unaware, and no banker ever dares to exploit the silence of forgotten savings.

(The writer is a retired banker and author. Views personal.)