About five years ago, it became obvious that there were serious problems with UTI and its schemes. Obvious that is, to everyone except officials in that institution itself and its masters in the finance ministry. It is impossible to be committed to equity in the fashion that UTI was, and give assured returns, as it committed to.
The NDA missed a big opportunity. It was in a good position to institute damage control. It could say with perfect truth that the UTI problems arose before the coalition was even conceived. It could have taken common sense measures to limit the fallout and cashed in on the opportunity of the 1999-2000 boom.
If, for example, US 64 had gone NAV-driven during the July 1999 boom, middle-class investors would have swallowed the change because it wouldn
