Unit Trust of India (UTI) was formed through a central legislation in the year 1963 for giving small investors a trustworthy government institution for investments. But, the UTI Act 1963 was repealed in the year 2003 paving way for the bifurcation of UTI into Specified Undertaking of Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) and UTI Mutual Fund (UTIMF) with UTIMF promoted by four large Public Sector Financial Institutions as sponsors, viz., State Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank with each of them holding a 18.24 per cent stake in the paid up capital of UTI AMC. UTI Mutual Fund is the oldest and one of the largest mutual funds in India with over 10 million investor accounts under its 230 domestic schemes or plans as on September 30, 2017.
But UTI had other schemes also before its bifurcation. Small investors are totally unaware of their investments made in schemes launched by a government-trust UTI. It is a duty of the central government to make investors in UTI to know about their investments. In case UTI does not exist now, Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs should own responsibility to write to every individual investor in erstwhile UTI about the fate of their investment. Procedure may be formulated for one-time-settlement for all those investors in UTI who do not wish to continue in dark about their investment in UTI.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
