Early Times Report
Jammu, July 25: A whopping amount worth Rs 42,272 crores have been declared unclaimed in different public and private sector banks in different parts of a poor country like India.
Union Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Bhagwat Karad informed that Rs 36,185 crores are unclaimed deposits with public sector banks while as Rs 6,087 crores are unclaimed deposits in private sector banks.
The Minister said that the “Depositor Education and Awareness Fund Scheme, 2014”, was notified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which covers norms related to unclaimed deposits and outlines details of utilization of fund including, inter alia, promotion of depositors’ interests and other purposes as may be specified by the RBI. As per the scheme, the unclaimed deposits are transferred by banks to the “Depositor Education and Awareness” (DEA) Fund.
He further informed that the RBI has taken various steps to reduce the quantum of unclaimed deposits and return such deposits to rightful claimants. Banks are, inter-alia, advised to display the list of unclaimed deposits which are inactive/inoperative for ten years or more on the bank’s websites.
Steps have also been taken to find the whereabouts of the customers and their legal heirs to return unclaimed deposits to the rightful claimants and formulate board approved policy on the classification of unclaimed deposits; and put in place a grievance redressal mechanism for quick resolution of complaints, record keeping, and periodic review of unclaimed deposit accounts.
Further, RBI has announced to set up a Centralised Web portal for the public to search unclaimed deposits across multiple banks.
As a result of various steps undertaken to return the unclaimed deposits to their rightful owners/claimants, a total Rs 5,729 crore has been transferred from DEA Fund to banks towards refund of settling unclaimed deposits, in last five-years.
RBI has also launched the campaign “100 Days 100 Pays” for banks to trace and settle top 100 unclaimed deposits of every bank in every district of the country within 100 days, commencing from 1.6.2023 to 8.9.2023. |
