Although UTI does not plan to increase the commission, but will compensate the agents by giving them higher volume of business by offering more products.

"UTI has more than 51 offices of its own and about 100,000 sales agents for its schemes. The trick is in ensuring that these agents become dedicated agents for UTI, rather than spread the distribution channel too thin," said Subramanyam.

"We will work out a strategy to ensure that all these agents are exclusive only to UTI and do not offer products of other rivals. This is one way to ensure that the Trust continues to maintain an edge in distribution over others," he added. "Today, the agent markets other products as well because he does not have enough products fromUTI on his plate. We will offer more friendly products which will help his business grow in terms of larger volume of funds mobilised. This will be the incentive for him as also the fact that he would have the distinct advantage of riding on the UTI brand name," said Subramanyam.

The additional products would include the insurance and pension fund products, which UTI would plan to launch in the near future. "The launch of insurance and pension fund products will fit in with the synergy of the distribution function of this large marketing force. Once these products are avialable, the agents will have enough on his plate," said Subramanyam.The move to restructure the agent force is aimed at beefing up the distribution network of the mutual fund behemoth which is going to face more and more competition from private sector mutual funds over the coming few years.

"The focus is going to be on investor care. This is the way I would like to put it and providing an investor with an array of products is going to beone way in which this will be achieved," said Subramanyam.

Experts have pointed out that in the long run the success of a mutual fund would be determined by the strength of its distribution network and this according to them is an area where Indian mutual funds have been found wanting.