WE NEED A REGULATOR FOR UNCLAIMED DEPOSITS

Unclaimed PF deposits to fund scheme for the elderly: Savings that remain unclaimed in Employees’ Provident Fund and Public Provident Fund accounts and other small savings schemes for seven years will be diverted to finance a Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund...



WE NEED A REGULATOR FOR UNCLAIMED DEPOSITS


Ministry of Finance, relying on section 128 of the Finance Act, 2015, has notified ‘Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund Rules, 2016, inter alia states:
“Every institution shall transfer the unclaimed amounts, including those under the following schemes to the Fund namely:-
(a)
Small savings and other savings schemes of the Central Government including the Post Office Savings Accounts, Post Office Recurring Deposit Accounts, Post Office Time Deposit Accounts, Post Office Monthly Income Accounts, Senior Citizens’ Savings Scheme Accounts, Kisan Vikas Patras, National Savings Certificates (all issues), Sukanya Samriddhi Accounts and discontinued Small Savings Schemes;
(b)Accounts of Public Provident Funds under the Public Provident Fund Scheme, 1968 maintained by the institutions concerned; and
(c) Accounts of Employees’ Provident Fund under the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.”
The recent media reports indicate that EPFO alone has about Rs32,000 crore as balances classified as ‘inoperative accounts’ which did not earn any interest for the last five or six years and thousands of crores may be lying idle in ‘unclaimed’ deposits under other categories mentioned above. The proposed transfer may end up in misappropriation of a huge amount of savings/deferred wages of millions of citizens kept in trust with statutory bodies/authorities. Instead of going ahead with the proposal, GOI should cause a professional audit of these unclaimed/inoperative accounts and find out why millions of accounts are remaining clueless on the books of these organisations. First effort should be to reach out to the real ‘owners’ or their genuine heirs to whom the balances should reach. While the nobility of the intentions to set up a welfare fund for seniors is impeccable, before appropriating funds from citizens’ savings, there should be an appropriate regulator for inoperative/unclaimed deposit accounts with institutions.

G Warrier, Mumbai 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NAVAGRAHA STOTRAM

THE SUNSET OF THE CENTURY

The King of Ragas: Sankarabharanam