A news report from Odisha last week stopped me in my tracks.Jitu Munda, an illiterate tribal man from Dianali village in Keonjhar, lost his sister Kakra two months ago. Her husband and only child had died earlier. Jitu was her last surviving relative. The balance in her bank account: Rs. 19,300.
He went to the Mallipasi branch of Odisha Gramin Bank. There, the manager asked for a death certificate, a legal heir certificate and other papers. Jitu did not even understand the word “documents.” So, he returned home defeated.
Then he did something that should shake every one of us. He carried his sister’s skeletal remains on his shoulder, walked three kilometres in the scorching sun, reached the bank, and said: “Here. This is my sister. Now give me her money.”
I do not raise this story to shame any one bank or any one officer. In fact, the manager may have been doing exactly what the rulebook told him to do. However, Jitu Munda is not just one man. He represents crores of Indians for whom our systems have become an invisible wall.
The Corridors We Built, and the Link We Forgot
In Maharashtra, almost every commuter knows the phrase Missing Link, the new stretch on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway built to bypass the ghats. Similarly, across India, we have built many corridors connecting cities, towns and villages.
Financial India has also made great progress. Today, 99.92 per cent of villages have a banking outlet within five kilometres. Jan Dhan brought over 50 crore Indians into formal banking. Aadhaar changed how subsidies reach the poor. Meanwhile, UPI has become the envy of the world.
Even so, one link is still missing. We have reached almost every PIN code in India. However, we have not fully connected banks with the common person. That person is often standing outside a branch with an old passbook and a death certificate, not knowing what to do next.
The Mountain of Money Nobody Can Claim
As per a Press Information Bureau release dated 24 March 2026, the unclaimed amount with public sector banks alone is over Rs. 60,518 crore. This money has been moved to the RBI’s Depositor Education and Awareness Fund. In addition, unclaimed insurance amounts stand at nearly Rs. 8,974 crore. Unclaimed mutual fund amounts add another Rs. 3,749 crore.
So, whose money is this? It belongs to ordinary Indians. Some were depositors who died without nominations. Others were policyholders whose families never knew a claim was due. Many were investors whose heirs could not understand the process. In many cases, it belongs to people exactly like Kakra Munda.
The money exists. Earlier, the owner existed too. Even today, the legal heir exists. Yet the paperwork does not. As a result, the rightful claimant returns home empty-handed, while the money sleeps in a government fund.
Therefore, this is not financial inclusion. It is financial exclusion through paperwork.
Self-Declaration Must Replace State Certification
This is the most important change our institutions must make.
Today, we ask the weakest citizen to prove his right by collecting certificates from offices that often do not guide him. For example, a widow may have to run from the tehsildar to the talathi to the registrar. Similarly, an illiterate brother may have to hire a lawyer he cannot afford for a certificate he does not understand. In other words, the burden rests on the person least able to carry it.
The solution must be available at the first counter, not after months of struggle. For small claims, a sworn declaration in a simple form should be enough. Also, the form must be available in the citizen’s own language. It may be signed before a panchayat secretary, tehsildar, notary or another approved officer. More importantly, the duty to help an illiterate citizen prepare it must lie with the institution, not with him.
We already follow this principle elsewhere. Income tax works on self-assessment. GST works on self-declaration. Aadhaar enrolment accepts self-attested papers. Therefore, if we trust citizens to declare their income to the State, surely we can trust a man to declare his own sister’s death to a bank.
A similar idea works in mature democracies. In the United States, the heir of a small estate fills out a sworn paper, attaches a death certificate, and the bank releases the money. In such cases, there is no need for probate. The United Kingdom also follows a similar small-payments process. Simply put, the rule should be: trust first, and punish later if someone lies.
The Pain We Must Sit With
Now, step back for a moment and think of who we are leaving behind. Crores of our own fellow citizens are poor, illiterate and voiceless. They are not in distant lands. Instead, they live in our own villages and districts. They are inside India, but outside India’s growth story.
The Constitution promised them equal protection of the laws, not as charity, but as a right. We have honoured that promise on paper. However, we have not honoured it in practice.
If our systems help only those who can understand them, the weaker citizen has no real protection at all. He may not be able to read the form, sign his name, or understand the word “documents.” For him, the Constitution becomes a beautiful sentence in a book he will never open.
Jitu Munda did not walk three kilometres carrying his sister’s skeleton. Instead, he walked three kilometres carrying a mirror, held up to the conscience of all of us.
The question, therefore, is whether we have the courage to build the missing link our fellow Indians need.
The author is a Senior Corporate & M&A Lawyer. Email: nitin@nitinpotdar.com