Yet another committee has been constituted to restore order in the 37-year-old UTI. Following the recommendations, much debate has taken place on whether the mutual fund should embrace the new structure to revive itself or not. The bottom line is clear as experts feel that this is going to be the last chance for UTI to revive.

The biggest mutual fund in India still continues to manifest and suffer from its own problems. Though the new year has dawned, it is not going to bring any cheer for the mutual fund behemoth and its millions of investors. The saga of crisis, constituting committees and seeking recommendations continue with no result. UTI has shattered the dreams of millions of investors and industry players time and again. The latest being the extension of the US-64 crisis that erupted in 1998. Following the new crisis, both the trust and the Government have constituted two committees to suggest remedies to bailout UTI from the crisis once for all.

If the earlier crisis had been a result of the liberal dividend policy and poor reporting, the latest is more because of the failure of UTI to implement the recommendations of Deepak Parekh Committee. Truly, if the recommendations of the earlier committees were implemented at any stage, this would have resulted in a healthy growth of the fund rather than erupting in yet another crisis. Considering the track record of UTI and the government in implementing the suggestions of various committees, it seems that the recommendations of the present committee would appear to be a futile effort. Questions that remain unanswered in spite of the various committee recommendations are whether UTI will accept and implement the suggestions? Is restructuring the only option available and particularly, will the structural reforms yield any result? Or does any other way of making UTI a viable entity exist?

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