It’s a savings account that no one has operated for the past 76 years. The family members forgot all about it as did the State Bank of India, Main Katchehri Branch, Allahabad, till someone recently stumbled upon the name of the account holder: Motilal Nehru —- freedom fighter, the father of the first Prime Minister of the country Jawaharlal Nehru, the patriarch of India’s most influential political dynasty.

Opened in 1897, the account still has Rs 2,650. Incidentally, the bank in the last more than 200 years has destroyed many of its old records and ledgers, but somehow the ledgers of 1897 and 1907 survived.

“As we say, history is eternal, so is the record which informed us about the glorious past of our bank,” says K Vaidyanathan, the Assistant General Manager of the Bank.

Since banks don’t keep records of closed accounts for so long, it is believed that this account was never closed by Motilal, which is why its records are still available.

“Normally the banks don’t keep such an old account. If transaction is not done for a decade or so, we freeze it. This account is also considered as frozen. But since we found it recently, we have decided to keep it safe”, says Vaidyanathan.

The discovery has also set the bank wondering if there may be other accounts of important people in its ledgers. Allahabad was an important part of the freedom struggle movement.

“There may be accounts of other important people of the time. We are trying to locate more records to preserve them,” says Vaidyanathan.

... contd.