New Delhi: The Union government has initiated steps to transfer crores of rupees lying unclaimed in deposits at the post offices to the senior citizen welfare fund.
A list of various deposits in accounts that have been inoperative for more than 10 years has been published. If the owners do not make any claims, these would be moved to the welfare fund for providing pension and other aid for senior citizens.
The unclaimed investments that would be moved belong to nine categories of Saving Schemes, including discontinued ones, Term Deposits, including discontinued schemes, Recurring Deposits, Public Provident Fund, National Savings Certificates, Kisan Vikas Patra and Monthly Income Schemes.
Over six lakh such unclaimed deposits exist in Kerala alone.
Over 3 lakh National Savings Certificate investments from Kerala have been named in the list. These certificates are in the range of Rs 100 to Rs 10,000. This alone would come up to Rs 15 crore.
There are around 62,000 accounts in the Kisan Vikas Patra too. Over 1.9 lakh recurring deposit accounts remain inoperative. It is not clear as to what is the amount invested in these accounts.
Twenty-four of the 33 discontinued term deposit accounts in the list are from Kattapana. Most of the investors in the Kisan Vikas Patra are from the north Malabar region. It is suspected that those who had made in the past small investments of Rs 100 or so might have forgotten about it.
Death and job transfers could be other reasons for the increase in number unclaimed deposits.
The provision to transfer deposits without claimants from banks, post offices and insurance firms to the welfare fund came into effect in 2016.
Unclaimed Deposits
Savings Bank Account - 530
Saving Bank Account (discontinued) - 3
Post Office Savings Scheme - 303
Term Deposit - 63,137
Term Deposit (discontinued accounts) - 33
National Savings Certificate - 313614
Kisan Vikas Patra - 61622
Monthly Investment Scheme - 5740
Recurring Deposit - 192558
(All approximate numbers.)
