TL;DR India’s updated bank locker rules strengthened security and clarified liability after a 2021 Supreme Court intervention. Data presented in Parliament reveal just 40 confirmed locker thefts in Public Sector Banks since 2020-21, but major transparency gaps remain, such as private banks’ data being unavailable, and compensation for negligence remains capped at 100 times the annual locker rent.

Context

India’s bank locker industry sits at the intersection of three forces: the financial system’s oldest trust product, a regulatory framework rewritten from scratch just three years ago, and a population whose relationship with gold and physical assets remains among the deepest in the world.

Bank lockers are the formal economy’s answer to that holding habit: a rental box inside a bank vault, accessed under the bank’s physical security, for an annual fee. They have existed in Indian banking since before Independence, governed for decades by a brief 2007 circular that said little about security, liability, or what happened when things went wrong. In February 2021, the Supreme Court found that gap intolerable and directed the Reserve Bank of India to fix it. The rules that followed, effective from January 2022, are the primary framework governing every bank locker in India today.

Against this backdrop, the government’s answer to a parliamentary question on 21 July 2026 provided the most comprehensive locker theft data. It is worth reading carefully, both for what it says and for what it does not.

Who compiles this data?

There is no single, dedicated authority for bank locker theft statistics in India. The Reserve Bank of India does not maintain exclusive data on locker theft separately from other bank security incidents.

The RBI’s Master Directions on Frauds lay down a specific reporting protocol for all banks. Every instance of theft, burglary, dacoity, and robbery, including attempted cases, must be reported to the Fraud Monitoring Group (FMG), Department of Supervision, Reserve Bank of India Central Office, immediately and no later than seven days from occurrence. In addition, banks are required to submit a quarterly return (RBR) on all such cases to the RBI through its online portal, within 15 days from the end of the relevant quarter.

In practice, this means two reporting obligations exist simultaneously for every locker theft: a near-immediate incident alert to the FMG, and a quarterly consolidated return that gives the RBI a structured, time-series view of all security incidents across every bank. Both cover theft, burglary, dacoity, and robbery at all bank premises, branches, ATMs, and lockers, in a single combined category, without a mandatory sub-classification for locker-specific incidents.

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and analysis-ready datasets on various aspects of operations of banks locker thefts are available through Dataful.

Key Insights

What the Rules Say: The RBI’s 2021 Circular

The RBI issued ‘Deposit Locker/Safe Custody Article Facility provided by the banks: Revised Instructions’ on 18 August 2021. Banks were directed to frame their own Board-approved policy and operational guidelines based on that circular. The key instructions of the circular include: adoption of a Model Locker Agreement; prescribed enhanced safety and security standards for lockers; ensuring that locker areas remain adequately guarded at all times; provision of SMS and email alerts for all locker operations; standardised procedures for breaking open lockers under specified circumstances; and a defined liability and compensation framework, along with mandatory disclosure of policies and procedures on bank websites.

On the physical security side, as informed by PSBs, locker units are housed in strong rooms or safes conforming to Bureau of Indian Standards specifications. Branches are equipped with CCTV surveillance, burglar alarm systems, fire alarm systems, and physical security arrangements that are subject to periodic audit. Banks have also been advised to put in place Board-approved insurance policies to mitigate losses arising from contingencies affecting locker contents.

On liability: as per the guidelines, banks are liable for loss of locker contents arising from fire, theft, burglary, dacoity, robbery, building collapse, or employee fraud, where such loss is attributable to the bank’s negligence or deficiency. In such cases, the liability of banks is capped at an amount equivalent to one hundred times the prevailing annual locker rent.

40 Cases of Locker thefts reported since 2020-21

Public Sector Banks (PSBs) alone operated 1,11,11,077 (1.10 crore) safe deposit lockers as of 31 March 2026, according to the Ministry of Finance’s reply in Parliament. Rural Cooperative Banks accounted for another 11,22,982 lockers, taking the known total across these institutions to more than 1.21 crore lockers. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), however, does not maintain a central database covering locker facilities across all banks.

Yet even a handful of thefts can shake public confidence. Between FY2020-21 and FY2024-25, Public Sector Banks reported 40 established cases of locker theft across India.  Viewed statistically, the risk appears extremely small, roughly 3.6 thefts for every million PSB lockers over five years.

Three States Accounted For Nearly Nine Out Of Every Ten Cases

Of the 40 confirmed thefts during this period, Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for 18 cases, or 45% of the national total. Jharkhand reported 12 cases, while Maharashtra recorded five. Together, these three states accounted for 35 of the 40 confirmed incidents, nearly 88% of all reported locker thefts in Public Sector Banks over five years.

The remaining five incidents were spread across Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Haryana, with one case each. Every other State and Union Territory reported no established locker theft during the period.

Why does it matter?

Bank lockers remain one of the least transparent segments of India’s retail banking ecosystem. While the latest parliamentary data indicate that confirmed thefts in Public Sector Banks are infrequent relative to the 1.1 crore lockers in operation, the figures also expose important information and regulatory gaps.

First, the published statistics are limited to Public Sector Banks and Rural Cooperative Banks. There is no publicly available locker-specific incident data of Private sector banks, despite operating a substantial share of the country’s locker infrastructure under the same RBI regulatory framework. Consequently, the available figures cannot be interpreted as a national estimate of locker thefts.

Second, the current liability framework remains constrained. The RBI limits a bank’s liability to 100 times the annual locker rent in cases where loss arises from bank negligence, employee fraud or security failures. As locker rents are typically modest relative to the value of assets stored, the prescribed compensation ceiling may bear little relation to customers’ actual financial exposure. The framework therefore allocates responsibility for operational failures without fully transferring the underlying asset risk to banks.

Key Numbers

• Bank Locker Thefts in India:
  2020-21: 0; 2021-22: 16; 2022-23: 17; 2023-24: 3; 2024-25: 4; 2025-26: 0

• States with highest bank locker thefts (from 2020-21 to 2025-26)

  • Uttar Pradesh: 18

  • Jharkhand: 12

  • Maharashtra: 5