New Delhi, April 29 -- The shift towards passive investing is one of the defining trends of this decade. According to NSE Indices' Nifty Passive Insight report, released in March, assets under management (AUM) in passive schemes stood at Rs.14.84 trillion as of end of February, up ninefold from Rs.1.63 trillion in 2020.

The passive universe now spans 677 schemes and 54 million folios, with 67% of AUM in equity, and more than half of that benchmarked to the Nifty 50.

The foundation traces back to Nobel laureate William Sharpe, who argued in his 1991 paper The Arithmetic of Active Management that, after costs, the average actively managed dollar must underperform its passive counterpart. The Nifty 50 offers exposure to India's largest com...