Last week, I attended an eye-opening event hosted by the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority in New Delhi. The highlight was Sanjeev Sanyal, former Principal Economic Advisor to the Finance Ministry, who shed light on India’s unclaimed wealth crisis—a problem both fascinating and deeply concerning.
Over ₹1 lakh crore is lying idle in government coffers, consisting of unclaimed dividends, forgotten shares, and other investments that belong to everyday investors like you and me. What’s more troubling is not the sheer size of this amount, but the fact that it’s growing faster than it’s being returned.
A maze without a ladder
Sanyal’s sharp wit captured the frustration perfectly: the system, he said, is like playing “snakes and ladders without the ladders.” Investors must navigate through three separate websites that don’t talk to each other, 25 confusing steps, and if you make a mistake, you’re back to square one. The irony is staggering. While investors fret over interest rates, geopolitical risks, or foreign investor sentiment, billions of rupees that are rightfully theirs remain trapped due to a labyrinthine claims process.
This misdirected focus exemplifies a wider issue in investing. While the process to recover unclaimed assets can take anywhere from two and a half years to forever, many simply give up. Yet, the same individuals spend countless hours tracking daily market fluctuations and expert forecasts—none of which have a real bearing on long-term wealth. It’s a disconnect between genuine financial security and the noise that distracts us.
The deeper problem is structural. Sanyal pointed out the “99-1 rule”—where one per cent of fraud cases create ninety-nine per cent of complications for everyone else. Systems built to prevent rare fraud incidents instead burden ordinary investors with unnecessary complexity. This flawed approach creates a thriving ecosystem of brokers and intermediaries who profit from keeping things complicated.
Ironically, fraudsters are often more adept at gaming these systems than genuine investors. They invest time and resources in exploiting the bureaucracy for repeated gains, while honest investors are discouraged at the first hurdle and abandon their rightful claims.
Designed for administrators, not investors
This disconnect reflects a broader issue in India’s financial architecture—it is built more for administrators and intermediaries than for the investors it’s meant to serve. The encouraging news is that reforms are being planned to streamline the process. The goal is to reduce the claim steps to single digits and resolve claims within 30–90 days. Whether these reforms materialise remains uncertain, but at least the problem is being acknowledged at the top.
For investors, there’s a broader lesson here. While you’re busy tracking daily market movements and parsing expert commentary about why stocks fell or rose on any given day, your real attention should be on fundamentals that actually affect your wealth.
Keep your nominations updated, draft a proper will, ensure accounts are active, and periodically check for unclaimed assets that are gathering dust. These are practical steps that secure your wealth far better than tracking every market headline.
The next time you lose sleep over the Sensex’s latest fall or rise, remember this: over ₹1 lakh crore is earning zero for its rightful owners simply because claiming it feels like running an obstacle course. That’s a far more urgent and tangible issue than market predictions. True investment wisdom isn’t about forecasting the next market move—it’s about ensuring the money you’ve already made doesn’t disappear into administrative black holes.
Dhirendra Kumar is founder and chief executive officer of Value Research, an indpendent advisory firm