UDGAM Portal
Context:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently informed the Supreme Court that 30 major banks have been successfully integrated into its centralised web portal, UDGAM.
This development was highlighted during the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that sought a unified platform to help legal heirs trace financial assets lying in the dormant or inoperative accounts of deceased individuals, which were increasingly being transferred to government-managed pools.
Facts About the UDGAM Portal:
UDGAM stands for Unclaimed Deposits Gateway to Access InforMation.
Its primary objective is to facilitate the easy identification and tracing of unclaimed deposits belonging to deceased account holders.
The 30 banks currently integrated into the portal are highly significant, as they account for nearly 90% of the total funds held in the Depositors Education and Awareness Fund (DEAF).
DEAF is a dedicated corpus established by the RBI in 2014 to house unclaimed deposits transferred from various commercial and co-operative banks.
Functioning as an interactive platform, UDGAM has already seen substantial public utility, with approximately 20 lakh registered users conducting around 44 lakh database searches as of April 1.
The RBI explicitly clarified that while UDGAM enables individuals to look up unclaimed accounts, it does not function as a claims settlement mechanism.
Once a deposit is identified, the claimant or legal heir must directly approach the respective bank to process the settlement according to applicable procedures.
Ongoing Challenges and Gaps:
Despite its success with bank accounts, the portal does not currently cover the entire financial ecosystem.
Deposits held in post offices, provident funds, and various insurance schemes have not yet been integrated into UDGAM.
This lack of integration continues to pose distinct challenges for legal heirs trying to locate non-banking assets.
Acknowledging this gap, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to outline the steps being taken to enable the return of unclaimed funds held across these other financial institutions.