After the 100 Days–100 Pays campaign of 2023 turned out to be a damp squib, the ministry launched another one on 25th October, this time incentivising banks with a fee to locate rightful claimants. Would it work? I asked in my column on 10th October. The answer is shocking.
Vanished Public Funds: Zero Accountability
Soon after the latest campaign began, a banker was alarmed by an internal WhatsApp message listing the ‘Top 50 DEAF (depositor education and awareness fund) accounts’ in one region. One of the largest unclaimed deposit turned out to belong to a government fund with a balance in crores of rupees. Digging into the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) UDGAM portal, he uncovered a massive systemic failure — which he shared with us anonymously.
Using simple keywords like fund, yojana, rural, or pradhanmantri and selecting non-individual accounts, he uncovered astonishing results in State Bank of India (SBI) alone. With help from a mathematics professor and his team, we, at Moneylife, further traced 134 accounts across a few more cities at SBI and Bank of Baroda (BoB). A deeper search is impossible, unless the RBI allows broader access or itself undertakes the work.
Welfare Funds That Went Missing
Our findings show that money meant for public welfare, employment generation, and community development has been treated with astonishing callousness. Our small search shows hundreds of government-linked accounts, with crores of rupees in them, lie forgotten with banks. Many have misspelled or mangled names, suggesting that they were opened with zero oversight. No one seems to have bothered to verify whether these accounts were genuine; whether the funds reached the intended beneficiaries; or should have returned to the government for reallocation. They simply remain with the banks, dormant and unaccounted for. Shockingly, we even found military funds in our search at SBI and BoB. Here is a small sample.
1.National Culture Fund, Janpath, SBI, New Delhi.
2.Multiple Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) accounts linked to Delhi hospitals and the ESIC headquarters, including ESI Fund Account No.1 and ESI Savings Fund Account No.2 at SBI, New Delhi.
3.Two Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) accounts at Bhavishya Nidhi Bhavan, Bhikaji Cama Place, New Delhi.
4.Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, Chief Engineer’s Office, Public Works Department, Panaji, Goa (SBI).
6.Several Jawahar Rozgar Yojana accounts in Bihar, with differing addresses.
7.Gram Panchayat Raj Singhada Mukhayamantri Gramodaya Yojna, Axis Bank, Patna, Bihar along with several other Gram Panchayat funds in other Aurangabad, Nagpur, etc, in SBI Maharashtra.
8.LIC Mutual Fund – Dhan 80CC Account, Maharashtra (BoB).
9.Prime Minister Gramodaya Yojana, Indian Bank.
10.Prime Minister Rojgar Gramin Yojana, Patna, Bihar.
11.Mulbhut Suvidha Yojana, Nashik, SBI.
12.Salokha Yojana Jatiya, Kandivili, Mumbai, SBI.
13.Yashwant Gram Samriddhi Yojana, Bhandara, SBI.
14.Indira Awas Yojana, Dhule and Pune (SBI) – appearing with spelling variations.
24.Four accounts listed simply as ‘Yojana’ or ‘Yojana Yojana’ at SBI Delhi branches — two flagged ‘KYC to be obtained’.
25.Yashwant Gram Sammruddhi Yojana appears five times, with spelling variants, across SBI branches in Bhandara, Jalgaon, Latur, Nagpur and Aurangabad.
26.Numerous other Gram Panchayat and Gramin Yojana accounts have also been left unclaimed.
27.Even Armed Forces Flag Day and Service Regimental Fund (Khadkwasala Tal, Pune, SBI) accounts lie dormant.
The sloppy spellings and duplicate entries raise troubling questions: Are these genuine government accounts, or ‘look-alike’ names created by careless or complicit bankers? Either way, they warrant a forensic investigation.
BoB has two accounts titled ‘Diwali Fund’, one labelled ‘staff’ — a name that should never have cleared compliance checks. There is also an SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur) Diwali Fund at SBI and RMO Diwali Fund at Bank of Maharashtra, Nasik; the same Bank maintains an account called ‘Welfare Fund’ in Akola with no identifiable beneficiary.
Even regulated and audited entities are on this list. The LIC Mutual Fund – Dhan 80CC Account (BoB) — which comes under supervision of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) — appears as an unclaimed deposit. There’s an Advocates Bar Development Fund (BoB) and an Aid Fund for Polytechnic Students at SBI Yavatmal whose name is garbled beyond recognition.
Most shockingly, the EPFO and ESIC funds, which are among the country’s largest welfare bodies, regularly audited by the comptroller and auditor general (CAG), have slipped into DEAF. How did even these active institutions, along with military funds, remain untouched for over a decade before being quietly transferred to RBI’s DEAF?
Vanished Money of Employees & Charities
The tragedy extends to private trusts, foundations and charities, including church and employee funds. Perhaps, many remain unclaimed not because they are forgotten, but because rigid rules and bureaucratic hurdles make recovery near-impossible.
The data reveals something deeply unsettling: dozens of charitable entities, foundations, trusts, temples, churches and missions, have lost access to their own funds, now frozen with RBI’s DEAF. Our team dug up 46; but there will be thousands more. Here are a few examples.
Mulji Valji Foundation, Somaiya Chambers, Mumbai, BoB (two accounts).
Pratyush Foundation (International AIDS Research), Anand Bhavan, Mumbai – BoB.
Heritage Foundation, Mahale Road, Mumbai, BoB.
Manav Foundation, near Hergon Chem, Mumbai, BoB.
BR Ruia Foundation Trust, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai, BoB.
Sulochanaben Shah Foundation and Shardaben Shah Foundation, Rasta Peth, Pune, BoB.
Universal Foundation, Shirodkar Complex, Kolhapur, BoB.
Matrusparsh Foundation, Jalgaon, BoB.
Bodhisatwa Foundation, Panchsheel Nagar, Nagpur, BoB.
Swaraj Foundation, Hupari, Maharashtra, BoB.
These are only a fraction of the accounts dumped into DEAF and signal a collapse of financial discipline and public accountability. If flagship welfare schemes can’t track their own money, what hope do ordinary citizens have?
UDGAM: Designed To Defeat Discovery
RBI’s much-touted UDGAM portal was meant empower people to track lost deposits transferred to its DEAF after a decade of lying dormant at various banks. Instead, it is an obstacle course that could frustrate even the most determined user.
Even a peek at UDGAM requires a registration process that demands a mobile number for a two-factor process requiring OTP, captcha and password and a declaration that you are seeking information for personal use.
Then, users must input the exact account name and a valid ID (PAN, voter ID, or driving licence) — impossible for accounts from decades ago when such IDs didn’t exist and were not mandatory – in fact, many Indians with bank accounts did not own cars or have a driving licence. Even if you persist, the system times out repeatedly in the middle of a search; worse, it blocks you for a day after six or seven logins.
Our repeated requests for a simple Boolean search have been ignored. RBI fears that easier access might enable fraud; but this logic collapses when even government entities’ accounts lie forgotten.
The Real Issue: Accountability
If a small group of volunteers can trace over 130 dormant government and private accounts, why should banks be paid incentives to do their job?
Every question leads to one conclusion: A systemic breakdown of accountability that has allowed banks to turn DEAF into a dumping ground, with RBI designing a system to hide it all.
The scale and spread of unclaimed funds across government schemes, foundations, trusts, military and religious institutions point to deep systemic rot of humongous proportions – at least over Rs1.5 lakh crore. Only a full-scale investigation by the central bureau of investigation (CBI) can uncover how so much public money was allowed to vanish into silence.
(We hold reference numbers for all the accounts mentioned here and more, for organisations seeking to claim their funds.)
Impressive work.... but is anyone listening.
If corporate funds, foundation funds and even the likes of EPFO or ESIC can lose their money, it raises a broader question how their accounts are audited.... in any basic audit process, the auditee would be required to reconcile all bank balances with their books of accounts and get account balance confirmations from banks. If the money has disappeared into DEAF, how are their balance sheets tallying (unless they have also written off the money in their books)... raises too many questions about the integrity of the process itself. The DEAF list should ideally feature only individual accounts that are not subjected to audits. Any other account being found should lead to disqualifying the auditor of that firm for life.
I did some outsourcing work for an Australian company that is into claims for Australian citizens. Sitting in India I could help them. https://www.asic.gov.au/for-consumers/unclaimed-money/
They have portals centralized (as above) and region-wise for citizens and the search is a cake-walk. I guess, intention is at the crux of every endeavour. It is shocking to know the state of affairs as your video today amplifies.
Kudos to the whistleblower and Money Life team for the vigorous search
and the status report published.
Can we expect any follow-up from either the RBI or the Finance Ministry? What would happen in other countries if such a report popped up in the public domain?
It is not just this administration but even the previous one had the same indifference to this problem.
One wonders why Indians are so indifferent to money meant for charitable purpose when they are most vigilant about their own money?
It is not just this administration but even the previous one had the same indifference to this problem.
One wonders why Indians are so indifferent to money meant for charitable purpose when they are most vigilant about their own money?
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Fiercely independent and pro-consumer information on personal finance.
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Access is given for all articles published during the week (starting Monday) your subscription starts. For example, if you subscribe on Wednesday, you will have access to articles uploaded from Monday of that week.
This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
Articles outside the subscription period can be bought separately for a small price per article.
Fiercely independent and pro-consumer information on personal finance.
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If corporate funds, foundation funds and even the likes of EPFO or ESIC can lose their money, it raises a broader question how their accounts are audited.... in any basic audit process, the auditee would be required to reconcile all bank balances with their books of accounts and get account balance confirmations from banks. If the money has disappeared into DEAF, how are their balance sheets tallying (unless they have also written off the money in their books)... raises too many questions about the integrity of the process itself. The DEAF list should ideally feature only individual accounts that are not subjected to audits. Any other account being found should lead to disqualifying the auditor of that firm for life.
They have portals centralized (as above) and region-wise for citizens and the search is a cake-walk. I guess, intention is at the crux of every endeavour. It is shocking to know the state of affairs as your video today amplifies.
and the status report published.
Can we expect any follow-up from either the RBI or the Finance Ministry? What would happen in other countries if such a report popped up in the public domain?
One wonders why Indians are so indifferent to money meant for charitable purpose when they are most vigilant about their own money?
One wonders why Indians are so indifferent to money meant for charitable purpose when they are most vigilant about their own money?