The government is likely to consider a proposal to privatise UTI Mutual Fund, once the valuation of the fund is complete, Union Finance Secretary S Narayan said on Tuesday.

"We may consider the next step (privatisation) for UTI MF after processes like valuation and due diligence are complete," Narayan told reporters in Mumbai after reviewing the mutual fund's performance with its sponsors, including the Life Insurance Corporation of India and the State Bank of India.

The reports from the four chartered accountancy firms, which are involved in the valuation of UTI MF (which has assets of about Rs 13,000 crore -- Rs 130 billion -- under management), were expected to be ready in about six weeks, sources said.

Narayan said this was the first time that the government had reviewed the performance with the sponsors and added that fund operations were being managed independently by the sponsors.

Although UTI MF sponsors, including Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank, have their own mutual funds, they were able to avoid conflict of interest and have shown matured handling of situation, he said.

The sponsors also discussed the Securities and Exchange Board of India's guidelines for a board of mutual fund trustees to avoid conflict of interest, he added.

The net asset value-based schemes of the erstwhile Unit Trust of India were moved to new entity UTI Mutual Fund, which came into existence with effect from February 1, 2003.

The UTI Asset Management Company presently manages 42 NAV-based, Sebi-compliant schemes and four offshore funds with about 10 million investor accounts.