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`US-64 will comply with SEBI norms'

N.K. Kurup

Suresh Krishnamurthy

MUMBAI, July 30

THE US-64 scheme will voluntarily comply with the norms of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) governing mutual funds from January 1, 2002 when the scheme is scheduled to become net asset value (NAV) based.

Speaking to Business Line , Mr M. Damodaran, Chairman, Unit Trust of India, said: ``When we move to NAV and put a couple of things in place, we will be fully SEBI-compliant. Not because we are under SEBI, but we are voluntarily complying. That is better than compulsory compliance.''

When queried on whether US-64 will come under the ambit of SEBI, the UTI Chairman said that in the period before January 2002, steps will be taken to amend the UTI Act and at that time they might look at provisions that will make US-64 come under the pur view of SEBI.

He further added: ``But what is important is not whether we are legally under SEBI but whether we are voluntarily complying with regulations.''

Interestingly, the UTI Chairman also said that the number of investors in US-64 is not ascertainable now. Unit Trust of India has two crore unit holding accounts but a single investor may be holding two or more accounts. As such, the number of investors may be considerably lower than the number of accounts.

When queried on this subject, Mr Damodaran said: ``Well, I can't give you a number at this point in time. We really need to look into that. We have a system, which we are going to introduce shortly where we will be giving identification numbers to invest ors. At that time, we will be able to get an accurate number at any point of time.''