In this round of presentations, new dimensions are being added to the changes that can be brought about in the procedures in place at UTI. Both the consultancy firms have made several presentations before top Trust officials and have outlined certain fresh initiatives which could be taken.

``A suggestion has been made on putting in place a call centre. This would enable an investor to call from any part of the country at our expense and get an immediate answer to his query," says a UTI source .

"Call centres are becoming extremely common the world over but are yet to be used as a tool for investor care in India. This is among the severalsuggestions that are being considered. Any final view would only be taken after the consultant finally shortlisted, submits its recommendations,'' he adds.

In September last year, UTI had shortlisted three consultants, McKinsey, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Arthur Andersen to draw out a detailed business process re-engineering exercise for the Trust. It has recently further pruned the list and shortlisted McKinsey and PricewaterhouseCoopers for the next round.

Subsequently, however, the Trust was hit by the crisis in its flagship scheme, US-64, after a public outcry was raised on the reserves of the scheme dipping into negative territory.

Finally after having weathered the US-64 crisis, work on the business process re-engineering exercise is once again in full swing. The need for a quick implementation of the project has become even more imperative now, with the Trust striving to revamp its image of being a laggard and an organisation where investor service is not on top of the priority list. This is animage that UTI has lived with, but has been trying to shake it off through efficient systems implementation.

The Trust has over the past two years undergone a major technological upgradation. This has filtered down to all its 51 branches across the country.

``We have automated various processes like dividend payment and redemption at several of our branches. We are now looking at how systems can be put in place to synergise various activities of ours, including the key-investor care,'' said the UTI source.

``We are looking at a generic system for maintenance and servicing of all schemes as is done under US-64. The business process re-engineering exercise when complete, could lead to greater efficiency and lower cost of operations,'' the source added.

The reason for taking a relook at its systems is clear. There are a host of private mutual funds including several foreign mutual funds which are making considerable progress in the Indian mutual fund industry.

Even though it may be quite sometimebefore these private mutual funds are able to carve out a corpus which can be of some challenge to UTI's Rs 60,000-crore corpus, it is clear that UTI would need to change its approach towards investor care and bring it on par with international best practices.