Around 7.5 million inactive mutual fund folios are sitting across the Indian fund industry right now, holding units that real investors bought, paid for and then simply forgot about after a change of address, a marriage, a job switch or a death in the family. If even one of those folios is yours, the money is still legally yours, and SEBI has built a free tool to help you find it.
Quick answer: MITRA is SEBI's free platform, run jointly by RTAs CAMS and KFin Technologies, that lets you search the whole mutual fund industry for inactive or unclaimed folios using your PAN. You verify with your name, email or mobile, then update KYC and nomination to redeem or keep the money.
MITRA stands for Mutual Fund Investment Tracing and Retrieval Assistant. SEBI introduced it through a circular dated 12 February 2025 and gave the Registrar and Transfer Agents 15 working days to launch the service. It is operated together by the two Qualified Registrar and Transfer Agents, CAMS and KFin Technologies, and is reached through the MF Central platform.
This article leads with the action, because the whole point of MITRA is to let you search first and read later. Follow these steps.
A folio that shows up in your MITRA results is not new money being given to you. It is money you already invested that the system had lost touch with because your details went stale.
People mix up two different things. The table below keeps them apart.
| Term | What it means | What MITRA does |
|---|---|---|
| Inactive folio | A folio with no investor-initiated transaction, financial or non-financial, for the past 10 years, but which still holds a unit balance | MITRA helps you discover and trace it |
| Unclaimed amount | Money that was already matured or redeemed but never collected, parked separately with the AMC and earning a specified return | MITRA does not pay this out; it is a separate process with the fund house |
In short, MITRA is a tracing tool for folios you forgot you held. It is not a payout scheme for amounts already lying unclaimed with a fund house.
Folios drift into the inactive category for very ordinary reasons. Recognising yours on this list is often the first clue worth a search.
Tracing the folio is only the first half. To actually use the money, the folio has to be brought back into a working state.
If you are claiming a folio that belonged to a deceased relative, the fund house will follow its transmission process, which needs proof of death and documents establishing you as the rightful claimant.
A few habits keep your money findable and stop the next generation from hunting for it.
Illustrative example. Kashvi Pathak runs her PAN through MITRA after a friend mentions it. The search returns a folio she does not recognise, opened a decade ago under her maiden name at an address she left long ago. The folio holds units she had forgotten she ever bought. Because no nominee was registered and her old KYC had lapsed, the folio had gone inactive. She updates her KYC, registers her current email, mobile and a nominee, and the folio becomes operable again, leaving her free to redeem the units or keep them invested. This example is hypothetical and is given only to show how the process works.
Yes. MITRA is a SEBI mandated investor service operated by the QRTAs CAMS and KFin Technologies. There is no charge to search for your folios. Be wary of anyone asking for a fee to do this for you.
Your PAN. MITRA uses your PAN to search across the industry, and you then verify with your registered name, email or mobile before any folio details are revealed.
Per the SEBI circular, an inactive folio is one where there has been no investor-initiated transaction, whether financial or non-financial, for the past 10 years, but which still holds a unit balance.
No. MITRA helps you trace and identify folios. To get the money you must reactivate the folio by completing KYC and updating your details, then redeem the units through the fund house.
Unclaimed amounts are sums already matured or redeemed but never collected, held separately by the AMC and earning a specified return. MITRA is for discovering forgotten folios that still hold units, not for releasing those separate unclaimed amounts.
Tracing can surface a folio, but claiming it follows the fund house transmission process, which requires proof of death and documents establishing you as the rightful claimant. Registering a nominee in advance makes this far easier for your own family.
MITRA is reached through the MF Central platform, operated jointly by the two QRTAs, CAMS and KFin Technologies. You can also use AMFI and MF Central more broadly as related lookup resources for your holdings.
If a fund house or RTA fails to act on a valid request, you can escalate the grievance. See our guide on the mutual fund and demat grievance route through SEBI SCORES and SMARTODR, and if a public authority is involved, the AI RTI Drafter can prepare an application under the RTI Act 2005.