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Some suggestions for UTI

N. Samba Murthy, e-mail

The UTI should be congratulated for giving the US-64 a six-month holiday. In fact, this should have been done between January and June this year. Better late than never.

It is the right time to bring out a new US-2K scheme, a mega scheme for the millennium, consisting of select balanced-equity-cum-small-savings-linked components. This could be operated with a maximum limit of Rs 2 lakh, and a minimum inve stment of Rs 2,000 at the entry level.

A 20 per cent discount could be provided for investment by US-64 unitholders who have been affected by the new financial market trends. Give them the option of converting from other UTI schemes to the US-2K scheme with the discount offer.

Involve UTI Bank at all levels of fund flow. Truncate the agency commission by 50 per cent. Wherever UTI Bank does not have branches, make Karnataka Bank, Vysya Bank, Global Trust Bank or other nationalised scheduled and private banks its extension count ers to transact the US-2K scheme's fund flow.

With the above arrangement, you can make investments with automatic transfers from RDs to the US-2K units after maturity. This will ensure the small investors' regular participation. Also, investors should seek tax exemption under Section 88.

The UTI Chairman and think-tank are urged to give these suggestions some thought to alleviate the distress of some investors.