By Aditi S Bade
In an unprecedented move to create governance oriented towards citizens, Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on October 4 launched a three-month-long campaign, titled “Aapki Poonji, Aapka Adhikar,” to help citizens recover unclaimed financial assets of nearly ₹1.84 lakh crore.
Inaugurating the campaign in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, she said: These unclaimed funds are idle sums lying there with the government whereas these funds truly belong to the citizens and their families. She exhorted government functionaries across banks, insurance companies, market regulators, and government bodies to proactively assist in the reunification of claimants with their assets.
According to the Department of Financial Services (DFS), unclaimed deposits, insurance proceeds, dividends, mutual fund balances, pensions, and other similar assets spread across entities like banks, RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, and IEPF cumulatively constitute this amount of ₹1.84 lakh crore.
Sitharaman laid down her plans for a three-pronged framework guiding the entire campaign:
1. Awareness – Informing the people, especially those in rural and underserved areas, that unclaimed assets might be due to them, and guiding them on tracing such unclaimed assets.
2. Accessibility – Enabling user-friendly digital platforms (such as the RBI’s UDGAM portal for unclaimed bank deposits) with the help of help desks and outreach centres at the district levels.
3. Action – Ensuring speedy settlement of claims with transparency and due fairness once valid documents are presented to support them.
Sitharaman continues to elaborate that the unclaimed assets claim can get passed from one entity to another upon time; deposits stand in custody in the RBI, and unclaimed shares and dividends may pass into the Investor Education & Protection Fund if claimed otherwise. The campaign wants to stop this drift, thereby helping rightful owners reclaim their funds.
The Government has thus been shepherding this initiative with assistance from bodies like RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, and IEPFA themselves. From October to December of 2025 across all states and union territories: formation of field camps, digital demonstrations, KYC / re-KYC drives, and outreach for awareness. The Secretary of DFS, M. Nagaraju, further elaborated that over ₹75,000 crore of unclaimed deposits had already been transferred to the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund of RBI by August 2025. Some more figures cited by him include ₹13,800 crore in unclaimed insurance proceeds, ₹3,000 crore in unclaimed mutual fund balances, and over ₹9,000 crore in unpaid dividends.
Sitharaman exhorted that in order for the campaign to fulfill its objectives, the various impediments need to be removed, and the processing of claims should be time-bound, thereby granting clarity to the citizens and confidence in reclaiming their funds.
Thus, in a way, it serves to continue with the theme of previous policy attempts for furthering financial inclusion (Jan Dhan, UPI, direct benefit transfers). But, unlike the others, its peculiar goal is to return to the people assets considered theirs but that have deeper land with dormant or forgotten assets. It will thus very much depend on outreach at the grassroots level, regulatory backing, and a somewhat digitally-powered infrastructure.