Sir — Huge amounts of funds are lying unclaimed without the knowledge of customers/depositors in suspense and inoperative accounts of banks across India. These institutions also include a large number of private, multinational and cooperative banks. It is grossly against national and public interests to leave such enormous amounts of public money, especially in private, multinational and cooperative banks.
The Reserve Bank of India should issue a directive that all banks must inform their customers/depositors by registered post that they must claim their funds lying for more than, say, three years, in such suspense and inoperative accounts.
After the expiry of a time-bound period, all such unclaimed funds should be transferred to a special fund with the RBI, from where it may be claimed afterwards by the claimants, either directly from the RBI or through their banks. A similar system should be put in place for savings deposits and accounts in post offices. It should not be difficult because, already, such a system exists in companies for unclaimed dividends.