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UTI goes for major reshuffling

N Mahalakshmi

Unit Trust of India has embarked on a major reshuffling among its ranks. Around 750-odd personnel, close to one-third of the total staff, have been transferred from the various departments. This is the first time that UTI has undertaken transfers on such a large scale.

UTI executive director BG Daga, however, played down the issue saying, "These are part of the annual transfers in the organisation and has no relevance to current issues." Sources also agreed that some of the transfers may be routine. But there have also been shake-ups in a number of key departments. For instance, about a dozen people from the investments department, which handles primary issues and private placements, have been shuffled out.

In fact, almost all the key people in the department were transferred around May, when the Trust was facing tremendous redemption pressure on US-64 as well as other schemes.

They have been posted in unrelated areas such as marketing, technology centres and in far-flung branches. The replacements have also been drawn from areas unrelated to investments. "Some of the replacements have little or no idea about investments," a source said.

Sources say that the UTI management may have effected the transfers in order to avoid a detailed investigation into the issue of questionable investments. "The new team cannot be made answerable for investment decisions taken by the earlier team, so internal transfers is an easy way to avoid a probe," the source said. Even though a majority of the staff was transferred from back-offices to the "financial centres" of UTI, the transfers in the investments department were clubbed with this re-organisation to keep the sensitive issue under wraps, said the source.

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