Last week, the government announced Bharat 22, an exchange traded fund of 22 large cap shares. While the composition includes mostly profit-making, dividend paying public sector companies, the government is also including some shares of blue chip companies like ITC, Larsen & Toubro and Axis Bank held under the Special Undertaking of Unit Trust of India or SUUTI.
The government observed in the release that over the past 3 years to June 2017, assets under management of exchange traded funds in India surged five times to just under Rs 54,000 crore. The release also emphasized that exchange traded funds or