The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on October 5 said that people can claim unclaimed deposits of 23 additional banks on the Unclaimed Deposits – Gateway to Access inforMation (UDGAM) portal.
“The members of public are hereby informed that, the search facility for 30 banks has been made available on the portal on September 28, 2023, which covers around 90 percent of such unclaimed deposits (in value terms) in Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund,” the central bank said in a press release.
Also read: MC Exclusive: No data on unclaimed deposits on UDGAM portal available with RBI, shows RTI
Earlier, the search facility was made available on the portal for seven banks, viz. State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India, Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd, South Indian Bank Ltd, DBS Bank India Ltd, and Citibank NA. The central bank also said that the search facility for remaining banks on the portal would be made available in a phased manner by October 15, 2023.
The new 23 banks which are included in the portal include Canara Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, IDBI Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd., Punjab and Sind Bank, Axis Bank Ltd., Indian Overseas Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC Ltd., Karnataka Bank Ltd., The Karur Vysya Bank Ltd., Saraswat Co-operative Bank, IndusInd Bank Ltd and Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Ltd.
Earlier, Moneycontrol reported that the UDGAM portal does not have data on unclaimed deposits. A right to information (RTI) report filed by Moneycontrol asking for details of the total amount claimed by unclaimed depositors from the RBI’s UDGAM portal from the period of commencement, i.e. August 17, till date revealed the central bank does not have the data.
What is UDGAM?
On April 6, 2o23, the RBI, in its monetary policy, announced the development of a centralised web portal to search for unclaimed deposits. In the post policy press conference that month, RBI Deputy Governor M Rajeshwar Rao said the portal to reclaim unclaimed deposits would be ready in 3-4 months.
Accordingly, the central bank launched the UDGAM portal for the public to search unclaimed deposits across multiple banks at one place.
Earlier, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Bhagwat Karad, in a written reply to Parliament on April 4, 2023, said that the total amount of unclaimed deposits transferred to the RBI by public sector banks (PSBs) fell to Rs 35,012 crore in February from Rs 48,262 crore in March 2022.
Of the total amount, India’s largest public sector bank, SBI, has the largest share of Rs 8,086 crore, followed by Punjab National Bank with Rs 5,340 crore, Canara Bank with Rs 4,558 crore and Bank of Baroda with Rs 3,904 crore.
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