A fund is given a star rating taking into account the risk it takes and the return it achieves as a result. The lowest rating is a single star and the highest rating is five stars.

UTI Mutual Fund has made significant progress over the past year. Take a look at the number of funds that fall under each star. The number of 5-star UTI funds has significantly increased over the year from just two in May 2005 to eight in May 2006.

In the latest rankings, UTI Mutual Fund has the most number of funds in the 5-star category (followed by HDFC [Get Quote] Mutual Fund). Of course, it manages a fairly large amount of funds -- 33 in all. Moreover, most of the funds with the high ratings are debt funds, not the equity ones.

All said and done, this is no mean achievement considering the fact that, in March 2006, only four of its funds rated five stars.