BENGALURU, Jan 8 Reuters Inflows into India39;s equity mutual funds rose in December, led by smallcaps, while the net assets under management AUM climbed above 50 trillion rupees for the first time, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India AMFI showed on Monday.

While the mutual fund industry took almost 50 years to build the first 10 trillion rupees of AUM, the last 10 trillion rupees was amassed in just over a year, supported by constant retail participation through systematic investment planning SIP, said Venkat Chalasani, chief executive of AMFI.

Net equity mutual fund inflows rose to 169.97 billion rupees last month from 155.36 billion rupees in November, the data showed.

Smallcap funds accounted for most of the investments for the 15th straight month at 38.57 billion rupees, more than onefifth of the overall equity mutual fund inflows.

In contrast, midcap funds saw inflows nearly halving monthonmonth to 13.93 billion rupees, while largecaps witnessed outflows of 2.81 billion rupees, in December.

This is the 34th consecutive month of inflows on a net basis.

The sustained domestic inflows along with record monthly buying by foreign portfolio investors drove India39;s benchmarks, the Nifty 50 .NSEI and the Sensex .BSESN, to alltime highs, rising about 8 each in December.

Mutual fund inflows in equityoriented schemes were at 1.62 trillion rupees in 2023, supporting the 20 rise in the Sensex and the Nifty, as well as powering the small .NIFSMCP100 and…