Passive funds, as the name suggests, are passively managed and mirror the performance of indices such as Nifty 50 or S&P BSE 500, allowing investors a low-cost and less risky exposure to the market.
But as family offices and individual or retail investors also seek higher returns from passive funds, India’s mutual fund industry is getting bolder with niche thematic products. The growing interest in passive funds coincides with the underperformance of several active funds relative to their benchmark index.
So far in 2025, mutual funds have added 225 thematic and factor-based passive funds, up from 183 in all of 2024, per Value Research data.
As of July, assets managed by thematic and factor-based passive funds had grown 16% year-on-year to ₹1.4 trillion, as per a report by DSP Mutual Fund on passive funds.
Factor-based passive funds, also known as smart beta funds, track indices based on factors such as value, momentum and volatility. Thematic funds focus on trends such as clean energy and digital transformation.
Currently, about 40% of India’s 620 passive funds are sectoral, thematic, or smart-beta products, per National Stock Exchange data. Niche passive funds account for about11% of the assets managed by all passive funds.
The number of niche indices has also increased—with BSE Index Services Ltd launching BSE 500 Momentum Index and BSE India Sector Leaders Index this year, and NSE Indices Ltd rolling out Nifty India New Age Consumption Index and Nifty 500 Multicap Momentum Quality 50 Index.
Key Takeaways
- Investors are increasingly turning to thematic and smart-beta products for higher returns, moving beyond traditional broad-market index funds.
- NSE and BSE are launching new indices, enabling mutual funds to offer diverse, differentiated passive products.
- Persistent underperformance of largecap and midcap active funds is driving investors toward low-cost, innovative passive alternatives.
When stock exchanges launch such indices, it paves the way for a mutual fund to start a passive fund replicating these indices. Sometimes, mutual funds looking to launch a niche passive fund approach index providers.
Ashutosh Singh, managing director and chief executive at BSE Index Services, said rising interest in passive products linked to themes and factors is reflected in the growing number of product launches in such strategies. “As the ecosystem evolves, we believe there is room for more innovative indexes beyond the dominant traditional broad market indices of today,” Singh said.
“The innovation around sectoral, thematic and smart beta index strategies has helped passive fund managers diversify and offer differentiated offerings,” added Aniruddha Chatterjee, MD and CEO at NSE Indices. “We are engaged with asset managers and product strategists to continuously assess and create investment strategies in the form of a new index to meet the evolving investor demand and preferences.”
Passive fund industry’s rapid growth
In 2024-25, there were 169 new fund offers within passive funds, taking the total number to 620, per NSE.
Also, passive funds accounted for 17.4% of the mutual fund industry’s total assets under management (AUM) in FY25, up from about 17% in FY24 and 7.3% in FY20, per the Association of Mutual Funds in India. The total AUM of passive funds has increased nearly 8 times over the previous five years to ₹12.91 trillion.
//any data on returns from passive funds and niche passive funds?
“The interest for passives is not just about low cost and underperformance of active funds but we are seeing uptick in innovative product categories like smart beta, thematic, and others,” said Siddharth Srivastava, head–ETF product and fund manager, Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India). “People are now looking at passive funds for differential solutions apart from simply thinking of it as a substitute for active funds.”
In the decade through 2024, 74% of largecap active mutual fund schemes in India underperformed their benchmark, as did 88% of active midcap and smallcap schemes, per S&P Dow Jones Indices’s latest report.
“Lot of things are coming together for passive investing in India—beginner investors taking exposure to broad market passive portfolios low on unsystematic risks; evolved investors getting deeper access to certain pockets of the market vide thematic and sector passives; EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation) herd effect drawing more investors; advisors being able to create customized baskets for their clients; AMCs (asset management companies) being ready on the shelf with varied offerings across buckets; index constructors being swift in making varied indices live; [and] new regulations supporting operational efficiency,” said Shaily Gang, head of products at Tata Asset Management.
New avenues for more indices
The National Stock Exchange and BSE are both looking for more niche avenues to launch more indices.
BSE Index Services plans to launch multi-asset and multi-factor indices while NSE Indices is expanding into commodities and multi-asset indices. Multi-factor indices refer to combining different factors into a single rules-based strategy.
BSE Index also sees the specialised investment fund segment as a promising avenue for growth. Specialised investment funds, which are relatively new in India, go beyond traditional equity, debt, or hybrid mutual funds, and may require constructing a different benchmark.
“As this segment gains traction, we are well-positioned to partner with institutions and bring benchmark solutions that support its growth,” said Ashutosh Singh of BSE Index Services.
Index providers are also seeing interest in passive fund products among insurance companies and pension funds.
“While the mutual fund industry is at the forefront of passive product innovation, we are seeing growing interest among life insurance and pension funds for passive products and are hopeful of seeing more demand coming from these segments as well,” said Chatterjee of NSE Indices.
Meanwhile, catering to increasing demand for passive funds from portfolio management services and alternative investment funds, NSE Indices has introduced Nifty AIF benchmarks to help investors and fund managers gain more insight into the performance of these funds, he added.