New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday, March 30, 2026, clarified that banks are legally barred from seeing or recording the valuables stored by customers in lockers. Responding to a supplementary question from Congress MP Namdeo Dasaram Kirsan during the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, the Minister emphasized that any attempt by a bank to monitor or evaluate the specific contents of a client’s locker would constitute a direct breach of banking regulations and privacy norms.
Due to this strict confidentiality, the government has ruled out the possibility of providing differential insurance coverage based on the actual value of items stored. Sitharaman explained that because banks cannot perform a valuation of the assets within a locker, they cannot offer tailored insurance premiums or payouts. Instead, the standard compensation framework remains fixed at 100 times the annual locker rent in the event of loss, theft, or damage, such as a locker-breaking incident.
The Finance Minister reiterated that since item-wise valuation is neither feasible nor legally permissible under current rules, the standardised 100-times-rent cap is the most practical approach. She further noted that there is currently no proposal under consideration to amend this compensation structure. The clarification comes amid broader discussions in Parliament regarding the Finance Bill 2026 and the strong performance of India’s fiscal indicators despite the ongoing West Asia conflict.
