East lagging in MF investments: SEBI official

Kolkata: The 12-odd states located in the eastern region were lagging in terms of mutual fund (MF) investments as compared to other parts of the country, a SEBI official said.

"The 12 states of the east are lagging behind in terms of MF investments as compared to other parts of the country", CGM of SEBI Piyush Gupta said at the ICC Mutual Fund Summit here today.

Giving data, he said that assets under management (AUM) in these states were Rs 1.29 lakh crore, which was only 7.4 pr cent of the total AUM of the country which was Rs 17.37 lakh crore.

According to him, this was very low compared to the combined population of these states.

Gupta urged the MF industry to take remedial steps to increase MF investments from the region.

He said that the proportion of equity MFs were rising as compared to debt funds.

He also urged the MF industry to concentrate more on the B15 list of cities as against the metros.