Assets under management (AUM) of exchange traded funds for gold in India, the world's largest consumer of bullion, has clocked a year-on-year growth of 37 per cent to Rs 11,198 crore by September 30, 2012.
The combined AUM of gold ETFs stood at Rs 8,173 crore in the same period of 2011, according to National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Currently, India has 14 mutual fund schemes offering gold exchange traded funds (ETFs).
"With the onset of the wedding season and festivals like Dhanteras, Diwali and Dusherra, interest (for Gold ETFs) is likely to pick up further," the NSE said in a statement.
While earlier investors preferred to invest in physical gold, with higher awareness about the advantages of gold ETFs, this asset class is rapidly drawing a lot of investor attention, it said.
Trend has shown that not only in the top 10 cities, investors from tier II and tier III towns have also started investing in gold through ETFs, it added.
According to the NSE, the number of clients who traded gold ETFs at its exchange platform has increased by 41 per cent to 79,000 as on August this year, from 56,000 in the year-ago period.
The average delivered value of gold ETFs on NSE has gone up by 17 per cent to Rs 433 crore during the September-August period of 2011-12, it said.
Nevertheless, investment in India's gold ETF is lower when compared with its approximately 700 tonnes of annual gold consumption.