My Little Success Story with RBI

[sidmis]

This is a little success story I want to share with the forum members.

For the last one year I have been trying to unravel the mystery behind the huge amount of money lying with the Indian Banking System in the shape of Dormant/Inoperative accounts. These money legitimately belong to the owners/heirs of the account holders and not to the Banks.

Large nos. of accounts are lying around and Banks are coolly enjoying the funds without paying any interest on it and doing nothing on it.

I discovered that thousands of crores of money in more than half a lakh accounts are lying in the Banks depriving the legitimate owners of this funds. This is AS per figures supplied to me by RBI. Perhaps this was first time some one asked for these information and it took RBI 2 months to collect & supply these information . (Free of cost)

One June 23 I filed another RTI application to know what the Govt. is doing on this.


I posed three queries to the Ministry of Finance.

1. Kindly let me know the various steps & instructions made by the Finance Ministry with regard to money lying with all Banks operating in India as Dormant / Silent / Inoperative accounts?
2. What steps are being taken by the Govt. / Ministry to return the money to their legitimate owners / heirs / claimants etc.
3. Copy of circulars / memos / instructions / office orders etc. with respect to above may be supplied to me.

The PIO of FinMin resorted to 6(3) & transferred it.

After much traveling my RTI application finally landed with the RBI and RBI after 22 days of receiving my RTI Application issued a notification with a slew of instructions to the Banks on how the accounts and funds in these Dormant & Inoperative a/cs shall be managed.

Today I received the official reply from the CPIO , RBI. And once again it was all free since the RBI has exceeded the 30 days deadline.

The said circular and the corresponding News articles are available here.

Please note that the following circular was non existant at the time of filing my RTI application i.e. on 23rd June 2008.

Unclaimed Deposits / Inoperative Accounts in banks

News Reports:
The Hindu : Business : Customers to get interest on inoperative accounts

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Business | Prop for dormant bank accounts

[ganpat1956]

Good work Sidharth. Like the dormant accounts in banks, the LIC is holding thousands of crores of unclaimed premium remittance of deceased persons. Years ago I had come across an article in one of the news papers about this, though I dont remember the full details at this point of time. Let us do something about these as well.

[sidmis]

Thanks Ganpat & Kushal.

Regarding LIC, I have heard about it. Since I was preoccupied with this dormant account issue, I could not find time for the same. Now it's time to look into that too as suggested by you.

Btw I have posted the main replies of RBI for members to see.

CPIO_RBI_Reply_ON_Dormant_Accounts_1

CPIO_RBI_Reply_ON_Dormant_Accounts_2


There are several other documents as mentioned in the reply. They are all available at RBI Website. So I am not posting them here.

[jps50]

Thanks a lot for the perseverence and efforts in public interest. However, circular from RBI is first step. We have to see what is done at the branch level. My 31 year experience in bank shows that H.O. reiterates RBI circulars and branches just file it out. They do not have time even to follow up loan defaulters, they will not follow dormant deposit account holders. After a month or two we can ask for action taken report for few main branches of some banks in the country and just activate ground zero. I will try few bank branches.

[sidmis]

However, circular from RBI is first step. We have to see what is done at the branch level.

Thanks JPS. You are absolutely right on that.

RBI circular is a begining. This issue should be pursued at various level. I think there are many more RTIs left to be filed in the coming months to see the results.

I will try few bank branches.

First start from the state level & then come down to branch level.

[karira]

That is a very good effort Sidharth !
Keep it up.

[The Great]

Sidharth, the same thing is with the Postal Deposit also. whether the RBI circular is applicable for Postal Department?

[sidmis]

Sidharth, the same thing is with the Postal Deposit also. whether the RBI circular is applicable for Postal Department?

I don't think so. Postal dept. have their separate rules for Savings and other accounts.

This is a news to me and worth pursuing further.

[chaglasmc]

Sidharth - This is very inspiring...keep the good work going.
If possible, we should have a folder within this website to refer to the RTI success stories, esp. the ones that have a wider appeal/impact.

[ganpat1956]

Originally Posted by chaglasmc

If possible, we should have a folder within this website to refer to the RTI success stories, esp. the ones that have a wider appeal/impact.

We already have a separate section RTI Community Lounge - Success Stories at rtiindia.org and this very thread has been filed only under that.