The fund has closed an equity linked saving scheme, Kothari Pioneer Taxshield '99, on March 31 with a mobilisation of Rs 5 crore. ``With the launch of an ELSS, we will have six ELSS schemes to manage under our ambit.

We have been launching one ELSS every year since 1995 and have been successful in these scheme both in terms of generation of returns and mobilisations,'' said the vice-president marketing Kothari Pioneer Mutual Fund, Prem Khatri.

The total asset under management of all the ELSS schemes is around Rs 220 crore as on March 31, 1999. The fund currently has an investor base of two lakh investors in all ELSS schemes.

``In the category of tax saving options, these days, alternatives like public provident fund (PPF) and national saving certificates (NSC) give an annual return of 12 percent. While our funds have been generating returns between 60 per cent to 100 per cent and this should be good enough for investors to walk into the scheme,'' said Khatri.

On the plans for this fund, Khatri said, that the mutual fund plans to make this scheme into one of the biggest schemes for the fund. ``This is because being open-ended with benefit of Section 88 and investments in equities should make the scheme into an attractive investment avenue,'' said Khatri.

Kothari Pioneer Taxshield '95 has given a NAV-NAV return of 99.23 per cent for the year ended March 31 and of 13.39 per cent since inception. Kothari Pioneer Taxshield '96 has given a return of 60.65 per cent for the one year ended March 31 and of 29.10 per cent for the period since inception. KP Taxshield '97 has given a return of 74.62 per cent for the year ended March 31 and of 53.14 per cent since inception. KP Taxshield '98 has given a one year return of 106.28 per cent and of 106.28 per cent since inception.

``As compared to KPTaxshield '99 where we had this clause of investing upto 50 per cent of the assets in information technology stocks, we have not kept any such stipulation for this scheme. In this scheme we will invest majorily in equities where we find value,'' said Khatri. The Government had given permission to equity linked saving schemes (ELSS) to go open-end or launch open-end ELSS.

Investments upto Rs 10,000 in ELSS qualify for income tax rebate under Section 88(2) of the Income Tax Act 1961. Equity linked saving schemes predominantly invest in the equity markets and usually have two options viz., dividend plan for unitholders desirous of regular returns and growth plans for unitholders desirous of capital appreciation.