# Why is the AUM for an Indian mutual fund lower than expected, or seemingly out of date?

Two facts explain nearly every AUM surprise, and both are about what the number *is* rather than anything being wrong.

**1. It is filed PER SCHEME, not per fund.** Direct and Regular plans, and Growth and IDCW options, are each filed separately with their own AUM. So a single row is a *fraction* of the fund. Worked example: one arbitrage fund's Direct Growth scheme shows roughly Rs 43,700 crore, while all four of its schemes together come to about Rs 70,900 crore. **Sum the variants to get the fund.**

This also answers the companion question - **"one fund is returning several rows with different AUMs".** Those are its plans and options, each with its own scheme code and its own filing. **They are not duplicates and you should not de-duplicate them.**

**2. It is a QUARTERLY AVERAGE, not a month-end number.** The figure is AMFI's quarterly average of daily net assets. Compared against a month-end AUM it will differ by a few percent in either direction - which is expected, not an error. If you need month-end, this is not that number.

**"The AUM looks out of date."** Check the quarter column on the row. Schemes move to a new quarter as AMFI publishes, so **they are not all on the same quarter at the same time** - most sit on the latest one and a minority on the previous. The quarter is on the row precisely so you can see which.

**One breaking change worth knowing if you script against the files:** the column `aaum_cr` was renamed to `aaum_cr_quarterly_avg` on 12 August 2026 - same values, same units, same position. The rename exists because the old name read as though it were today's AUM, which is exactly the misreading above. Rename the reference; nothing else changed. It affects the **latest-snapshot files only** - full-history downloads are unaffected.

Where the field lives: [the scheme master](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/where-do-i-get-a-list-of-all-india-mutual-fund-schemes). If other values look odd rather than merely small, that is a [separate question with its own answer](https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/why-does-india-mutual-fund-data-look-wrong). Source: [https://www.tigzig.com/post/mf-nav-api-faq-aug2026](https://www.tigzig.com/post/mf-nav-api-faq-aug2026).

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Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar
Source: https://www.tigzig.com/agents-faq/why-is-the-mutual-fund-aum-lower-than-expected
Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar.
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