To say the awareness around unclaimed assets is quite low would be a huge understatement. Taking into account unclaimed dividends and current market value of unclaimed shares, assets worth more than ₹90,000 crore are lying unclaimed with the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPFA), according to data collected by Fee-Only Investment Advisors, a financial planning firm.
Established in 2016 under the ministry of corporate affairs, IEPFA is a custodian of investors’ funds that have not been claimed for more than seven years. Its job is to transfer these funds back to investors safely after verifying their identity.
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Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unclaimed shares and dividends from the erstwhile Raymond Ltd. Of these, 288 shares and associated dividends are unclaimed, as per the ministry of corporate affairs’ (MCA) portal, according to Ankit Garg, advocate and founder of Garg Law Chambers.
Modi has another ₹4,032 in unclaimed Raymond dividends, IEPFA’s database showed. These are scheduled to be in IEPFA’s custody from 9 July, the authority’s database showed. Details on the number of shares underlying these dividends is unavailable. An email sent to the Prime Minister’s Office remained unanswered.
How to find your unclaimed investments
IEPFA’s database, available on its website iepfa.gov.in, can be used to look up investors’ unclaimed shares.
Three search methods are available:
Find your unclaimed investments by entering basic information such as your name and location;
Search using your PAN;
Enter the company’s name or your demat ID and folio number.
Other big names on the list
IEPFA data also showed that union minister of communications Jyotiraditya Scindia has 6,000 unclaimed shares of HDFC Bank with a market value of more than ₹1 crore, and dividends worth ₹2 lakh.
Veteran stock market investors Vijay Kedia, Madhusudan Kela and Radhakishan Damani also have unclaimed shares and dividends from multiple companies, as do former solicitor general of India Harish Salve and Piramal Group chairman Ajay Piramal.
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Kedia, however, said that he has already recovered all shares and dividends. “I got it done for Glycol 6 months ago, ITC 1 year ago, and Somany Ceramics, 2 years ago,” Kedia said.
This suggests the IEPFA database may not be updated since it still shows shares and dividends pending unclaimed for Kedia. “The data comes to IEPFA through the MCA-21 portal. It is updated in company filings though,” said an IEPFA spokesperson.
Huge backlog
IEPFA has been struggling with applications that have already been filed, and has faced criticism for its slow procedures and lack of transparency.
The authority has yet to release its annual report for 2023-24. The IEPFA spokesperson said that the report will be out only after it is placed in the winter session of Parliament.
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The 2022-23 annual report estimates that ₹120 crore worth of shares were lying unclaimed as of March 2023. An IEPFA official told Mint in September that only 1% of this amount had been released.
The IEPFA website shows it is currently handling applications filed in August 2023 in the ‘other than senior citizen’ category—a backlog of 21 months. For senior citizens (above 75 years), it is currently reviewing applications filed in December 2024.
Digitisation delay
Meanwhile, a much-anticipated integrated portal that will digitise the claims process—which was originally scheduled for launch in February 2024.
“Once it goes live, a lot of the manual work we currently do will be digitised, significantly reducing the time required to approve claims. The portal’s launch is expected by August 2025,” the IEPFA spokesperson said.
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“More than two crore shareholders are awaiting updates on their applications. Of these, 70-80% have assets with a market value of less than ₹5 lakh,” said Khagesh Chitlangiya, founder of Jeevantika Consultancy Services. “While IEPFA has taken some welcome measures to ease the claims process, extended delays at their end make the whole effort futile. We see no visible improvement at the ground level.”
Mint reported earlier this month that to reduce IEPFA’s burden, the government planned to work closely with businesses and market players such as share transfer agents to find the rightful owners of unclaimed assets so that the money could be transferred directly to them from the company itself before it flowed to IEPF.
