Mumbai, October 15 (PTI): Mutual fund players’ total assets under management (AUM) from the North East have grown 65.76 per cent in a year to Rs 14,454 crore as of August this year, spurred by aggressive marketing and awareness campaigns by the industry. Markets regulator Sebi mandates mutual funds (MFs) to set apart 2 basis points of their AUM for investor education. Half of this amount has to be shared with the industry body AMFI for better fund utilisation. The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) kick- started a new media campaign in March to position MFs as a preferred investment option for potential investors. The cumulative AUM from the seven NE states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and the Himalayan state of Sikkim rose to Rs 14,454 crore, according to the Amfi data. Among the Seven Sisters, as the NE states are popularly known, the largest state Assam has emerged at top with the highest AUM of Rs 8,960 crore up from Rs 5,025 crore a year ago. It is followed by Meghalaya (Rs 1,700 crore), Tripura (Rs 1,007 crore) and Sikkim (Rs 984 crore). The fifth largest AMC SBI Mutual Fund has emerged as the largest player in the region in the AUM sweepstake with an AUM of Rs 4,664 crore, followed by Reliance MF - Rs 1,455 crore, according to the Amfi data. SBI MF attributed the tremendous trust that its parent State Bank enjoys in the region for this huge growth. “People have got lots of trust in brand SBI and we are lucky to have penetrated the NE market,” SBI AMC executive director DP Singh told. “We’ll continue to have our focus on the NE state and other similar markets,” he added. Reliance MF chief executive Sundeep Sikka attributed the growth to the concerted effort that the company had in the region with more focus on marketing and making people aware of the benefits of MF investments. “We held many investor awareness campaigns in the North Eastern region and now we can confidently say that though at a very nascent stage, our efforts have started bearing fruit,” he added. The other AMCs that have made it big in the region include Birla Sunlife (Rs 924 crore), ICICI Prudential (Rs 907 crore) and HDFC (Rs 766 crore). The data for August showed that Maharashtra contributes more than 40 per cent or close to Rs 9 trillion (Rs 9 lakh crore) of the total industry AUM of over Rs 20.8 trillion, which shows the tremendous growth potential for the sector. It is followed by Delhi with around Rs 2 trillion; Karnataka at Rs 1.5 trillion; Gujarat Rs 1.33 trillion and Bengal Rs 1.1 trillion as of August.