The Finance Ministry’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) has closed a three-month nationwide campaign, “Aapki Poonji, Aapka Adhikar – Your Money, Your Right”, after helping citizens reclaim about ₹4,200 crore in unclaimed financial assets. The drive ran from October to December 2025 and focused on bank deposits, insurance proceeds, mutual funds, dividends and shares that people had forgotten or never claimed.
Key Highlights
- DFS ran the Your Money, Your Right campaign across India from October–December 2025, with support from RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and IEPFA.
- The campaign helped return around ₹4,200 crore in unclaimed assets to rightful owners and heirs.
- Authorities organised facilitation camps in 748 districts and used digital portals to trace old deposits and investments.
- Indicative estimates show unclaimed deposits of about ₹78,000 crore in banks alone, and roughly ₹1 lakh crore when insurance, mutual funds and dividends are included.
- In Jammu & Kashmir, RBI-linked outreach has highlighted about ₹465.79 crore lying in 17.2 lakh unclaimed accounts, with Reasi district alone accounting for roughly ₹20.68 crore.
Main News Details
DFS has announced that it has “successfully concluded” the three-month campaign, which it ran with all major financial-sector regulators. The campaign started on 4 October 2025, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated it in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
During October–December, banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and market intermediaries held facilitation camps at district and block level. Staff at these camps checked records, verified documents and helped citizens file claims for:
- Dormant savings and current accounts
- Old fixed and recurring deposits
- Lapsed or unpaid insurance proceeds
- Unclaimed mutual fund units
- Unpaid dividends and shares transferred to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)
DFS states that, because of this coordinated effort, unclaimed financial assets worth about ₹4,200 crore have now been restored to their owners or legal heirs. This figure covers claims settled through both physical outreach camps and existing online search portals during the three-month window.
The ministry has emphasised that the end of the campaign does not end the claim process. Citizens can continue to use the same digital platforms and bank channels to trace and claim their money even after December 2025.
Tools You Can Use to Find Forgotten Money
The campaign leveraged and popularised several existing platforms:
- RBI’s UDGAM portal (Unclaimed Deposits – Gateway to Access Information) lets users search for unclaimed bank deposits that have moved to the Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund after ten years of inactivity.
- Bima Bharosa helps track unclaimed life-insurance proceeds across multiple insurers.
- SEBI / IEPFA online services allow investors to reclaim unclaimed dividends, matured debentures and shares transferred to the IEPF.
At the on-ground camps, officials demonstrated these portals live, guided visitors through login and search steps, and helped them prepare claim documents.
J&K Focus: Scale of Unclaimed Money in the UT
In Jammu & Kashmir, J&K UTLBC (Union Territory Level Bankers’ Committee) and district administrations organised multiple mega facilitation camps under the campaign in Reasi, Rajouri, Anantnag, Udhampur, Samba, Pulwama, Baramulla, Budgam, Bandipora and other districts.
At one such camp, RBI and UTLBC officials explained that the UT has 17,20,878 unclaimed accounts amounting to about ₹465.79 crore, with Reasi district alone accounting for 94,598 accounts worth around ₹20.68 crore.
They also highlighted a “quick settlement incentive” for banks: for eligible inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits settled between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026, banks can claim up to 7.5% of the balance or ₹25,000 (whichever is lower) as an incentive from the DEA Fund. This structure encourages banks to proactively contact customers or legal heirs and close old cases faster.
Official Statements
The DFS press communication emphasises that the campaign aims to “enable citizens to trace and claim their unclaimed financial assets” and credits close coordination between regulators and institutions for the ₹4,200-crore restitution.
At the launch in Gandhinagar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman described unclaimed amounts as people’s “own savings locked up in the system” and said the government wants to “return every rupee to its rightful owner” through awareness, accessibility and action.
DFS and RBI have repeatedly clarified that citizens face no time limit to claim such money, even after banks transfer deposits to the DEA Fund or companies transfer amounts to the IEPF.
Impact: Why This Matters for Ordinary Savers
The numbers underline the scale of the issue. Analyses based on RBI and government data show:
- Banks together hold about ₹78,000 crore in unclaimed deposits.
- Insurance companies hold an estimated ₹14,000 crore in unpaid policy proceeds.
- Mutual funds hold around ₹3,000 crore, and unclaimed dividends are near ₹9,000 crore.
Taken together, different sources estimate around ₹1 lakh crore in unclaimed financial assets across the system—money that belongs to citizens, not to institutions.
For families in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of India, the campaign:
- Gives a clear process to track forgotten accounts of parents or grandparents.
- Helps heirs who never completed paperwork after a death.
- Reduces the need to run from one bank or insurer to another, because they can start with centralised portals and district-level camps.
Financial planners quoted in business media note that even small forgotten balances can matter for low-income households and that this initiative nudges people to organise documents, nominees and contact details more carefully for the future.
FAQs on ‘Your Money, Your Right’ and Unclaimed Money
It is a nationwide Finance Ministry drive, run from October to December 2025, to help citizens trace and claim unclaimed financial assets such as bank deposits, insurance proceeds, mutual fund units, dividends and shares.
DFS states that the campaign restituted about ₹4,200 crore to rightful owners and legal heirs through district-level camps and digital claim platforms.
Money typically becomes “unclaimed” when no one operates the account or claims the proceeds for a long period. Examples include:
Bank accounts and fixed deposits untouched for 10+ years
Insurance policy proceeds not claimed after maturity or death
Mutual funds, dividends and shares where investors never completed the claim process
After specified cut-off periods, banks send such balances to the DEA Fund at RBI and companies send them to the IEPF, but customers or heirs can still claim them at any time.
You can:
Visit RBI’s UDGAM portal and search for unclaimed bank deposits by entering your name and other basic details.
Use the Bima Bharosa portal for unclaimed insurance proceeds.
Check SEBI and IEPF Authority websites for unclaimed dividends and shares.
Contact your bank, insurer or mutual fund with ID proofs and old documents if you know the institution but not the exact account number.
District-level facilitation camps under the campaign also help people complete these steps with on-ground support.
People in J&K can:
Watch for announcements of UTLBC facilitation camps in their district.
Visit the home branch of any bank where they or their relatives held accounts and ask staff to check for dormant balances or DEA-Fund transfers.
Use UDGAM and other national portals from home or via common service centres.
Given the ₹465.79 crore lying idle in over 17 lakh unclaimed accounts in the UT, officials urge residents to check both their own and their relatives’ old accounts.
Disclaimer
This article summarises information from official government releases, regulator FAQs and leading news reports about the Your Money, Your Right campaign and unclaimed financial assets. It does not provide personalised financial, legal or tax advice. Rules, processes and eligibility can change, and each claim depends on its own documents and facts.
Readers should:
- Refer to official portals (RBI UDGAM, Bima Bharosa, IEPF, bank and insurer websites).
- Contact their bank, insurer, mutual fund house, or a qualified adviser before acting.
http://www.kittonews.com does not accept responsibility for any financial loss, delay or dispute arising from actions taken solely on the basis of this report.
