SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Bank has emerged as one of the major contributors to the Reserve Bank of India’s Depositor Education and Awareness (DEA) Fund, having transferred Rs 363 crore in unclaimed deposits as of June 30, 2025. The bank’s figures were placed before the Rajya Sabha in response to an unstarred question on unclaimed financial assets, answered by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary.
According to the Ministry of Finance, bank accounts that remain inoperative for ten years, or term deposits not claimed for a decade after maturity, are categorised as unclaimed and transferred to the DEA Fund. Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which is the largest financial institution operating in the Union Territory and remains central to household banking in the region, features among the significant private sector contributors to the Fund.
The Ministry further stated that efforts to trace rightful claimants have intensified in recent years. Between April 2022 and November 15, 2025, Jammu and Kashmir Bank settled 24,886 unclaimed accounts, returning Rs 55 crore to families, nominees, or legal heirs. This is part of a nationwide exercise in which banks have been asked to trace dormant account holders, display lists of unclaimed deposits on their websites, strengthen grievance mechanisms, and adopt Board-approved policies for monitoring inoperative accounts.
The Reserve Bank of India has also launched UDGAM, a centralised online portal intended to help citizens search for unclaimed deposits across multiple banks in one place. The initiative aims to reduce delays and eliminate the difficulty families often face in identifying dormant accounts of deceased relatives, particularly in regions where documentation gaps persist.
To push the effort further, the Government of India launched a nationwide campaign titled Aapki Poonji, Aapka Adhikar, Your Money, Your Right in October 2025. The three-month campaign is being conducted across every State and Union Territory, including all districts of Jammu and Kashmir. District-level camps, digital demonstrations, and helpdesks have been set up to guide citizens in checking for unclaimed deposits and filing claims. Awareness materials in regional languages have also been disseminated to make the process more accessible.
For Jammu and Kashmir, where banking is dominated by a single institution and where families frequently discover old accounts belonging to deceased relatives, the campaign is expected to play a significant role in reconnecting account holders with their money. With Rs 363 crore already lying with the DEA Fund from JK Bank alone, officials say the focus now is on ensuring that more families make their claims through the bank, the UDGAM portal, or the ongoing outreach camps.
