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At UTI, he bears the brunt

Ashok Jainani

MUMBAI, Aug. 16

IF Unit Trust of India (UTI) is overburdened with problems in the market place about its largest scheme, Unit Scheme-1964 (US-64), one of its executive directors could well claim that for himself. All of a sudden, a single executive director has been loa ded with handling almost every aspect pertaining to the day-to-day work of funds management. And the fund size is about Rs 55,000 crore spread across dozens of schemes with different objectives.

Mr D.S.R. Murthy, Executive Director, aged 47, is a chartered accountant. To begin with, he is in charge of the HRD department. UTI currently has about 2,500 employees spread over 60 offices across the country. ``Retaining and managing such a large army itself is a full time job,'' insiders say.

Mr Murthy is also in charge of the department of investments (primary markets) in equity and debt. This involves handling assets worth about Rs 5,000 crore. In addition, Mr Murthy is in charge of the department of funds management (equity schemes). In th at capacity, he is head of all fund managers. This job also involves handling over Rs 20,000 crore of investors assets.

Mr Murthy was made in charge of the department of market operations following the arrest of Mr M.M. Kapur last month in Cyberspace private placement deal. The department of market operations has an annual turnover of about Rs 20,000 crore in equities. `` This alone requires at least two or three individuals to handle such large volumes,'' senior officials say.

Mr Murthy also has to handling international finance and offshore funds including certain tie-ups with overseas firms. UTI has offshore investors' assets worth over Rs 2,000 crore in offshore funds.

In addition, he has the portfolio of venture capital funds division which deals with unlisted companies. UTI has over Rs 600 crore assets in venture funds. The net asset value (NAV) of these funds are not known publicly as these funds are privately place d with large institutions, banks and insurance firms.

This executive director seems to be what insiders say is a ``consensus candidate'' and this desire for consensus has seen one individual being overburdened with work pertaining to almost six executive directors. Everytime, a senior official left UTI for one reason or the other, he has been assigned the work of the one who left, insiders point out.