Prior to investing in a mutual fund scheme, investors tend to compare its past returns with those of similar schemes in the same category. Besides past returns, investors are also supposed to evaluate other factors which include past performance of the fund manager, overall market performance and reputation of the fund house, among others.
Here, we list out the top performing equity linked savings schemes, or ELSS, which have delivered high returns in the past 10 years.
ELSS schemes
For the initiated, equity linked savings schemes refer to the schemes which invest at least 80 percent in stocks in accordance with Equity Linked Saving Scheme, 2005, notified by the Ministry of Finance. These schemes have a lock-in period of three years (shortest amongst all other tax saving options). These funds also offer tax deduction of upto ₹1.50 lakh under section 80C of Income Tax Act.
There are a total of 43 schemes in this category with total AUM (assets under management) of ₹2.16 lakh crore, reveals the latest AMFI data.
(Source: AMFI; returns as on March 13, 2025)
As we can see in the table above, the highest performance was given by Quant ELSS Tax Saver Fund (18.33%) followed by Motilal Oswal ELSS Tax Saver Fund (14.67%).
Other schemes which have delivered over 12 percent annualised returns include Bandhan ELSS Tax Saver Fund, Bank of India ELSS Tax Saver Fund, Kotak ELSS Tax Saver Fund, JM ELSS Tax Saver fund and DSP ELSS Tax Saver Fund.
ELSS schemes – based on the size of assets – are SBI Long Term equity fund (with AUM of ₹26,287 crore) and DSP ELSS Tax Saver Fund ( ₹15,278 crore).
It is noteworthy to mention that the past returns are not guaranteed in future. This means just because a scheme has performed exceptionally well in the past, it does not mean it will continue to perform at the same pace.
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