New Delhi: If you haven't checked your bank account even once in the past two years, chances are great that it would have become inactive by now. Corrupt bank officials who have access to the details of such accounts can easily siphon of your funds. It has happened in the past and there is a great possibility of its happening in future also.

People often have many bank accounts and when overwhelmed by other activities or for whatever reasons they are not able to check their accounts for a long periods, these accounts become inactive. There are different periods adopted by banks to declare a bank account as inactive. 

This period can range anywhere between one to two years of inactivity in the account, Citibank, Standard Chartered and HSBC wait for two years before declaring an account inactive, while ICICI bank waits for 15 months, HDFC declares a bank account as inactive if it finds that no transactions have taken place from the account for the past 12 months. Inactive accounts cannot be accessed via ATMs, phone banking or internet.

Recently a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report stated that an unclaimed amount of more than Rs.1000 crore was lying in 1.03 crore inactive accounts. Of these, 77.4 lakh were saving accounts amounting over Rs. 630 crore.

Any official who has an access to the details of such accounts can forge signatures and withdraw funds from these accounts using withdrawal slips. Though, banks have initiated safety measures like maintaining all such data at a single place and using a separate ledger for all inactive accounts, but it is not foolproof.

While many such accounts only have small amounts in them, which is consumed as bank charges for non maintenance of required balances. These accounts usually are not cause of much concern for owners but the accounts, which have a size-able deposit amount needs to be taken care of properly.

One solution to this problem is limiting the bank accounts and frequently checking them so that they do not get inactive. If you don't want to use a bank account it is definitely better to close it and withdraw all funds therefore negating chances of any such fraud. In case you have got a bank account, which has been rendered inactive by the bank, the best way to get it reactivated is to go personally to your bank with a proper identity proof and make a formal request. However, there are other methods like sending a message to your bank from your personal Internet banking ID and instructing the bank to pass Re 1 debit and credit entries into your account.

Though, RBI has asked the banks to make every effort to contact the owner of any inactive bank account before classifying it as dormant, bankers feel that it is an arduous task and a lot of resources are required for this effort, which makes it impractical for most of the banks.