New Delhi : Continuing to bet on the government's reforms agenda, overseas investors have pumped in a whopping Rs 17,000 crore in the Indian capital market since the beginning of this month.

Net investments by foreign investors in the equity market were Rs. 6,665 crore ($1.1 billion) from September 1 to 12, while they infused a net amount of Rs 10,432 crore ($1.72 billion) in the debt market during the period, taking the total to Rs 17,098 crore ($2.8 billion), as per the latest official data.

Market analysts maintain that overseas investors (foreign institutional investors, sub-accounts or foreign portfolio investors) have been betting on the Indian market mainly on account of the reforms agenda of the new government at the Centre.

They anticipate that inflows would continue in the coming months on a slew of measures announced by the government.

Since the beginning of the year, foreign investors have made a net investment of Rs 1.98 lakh crore ($33 billion) into the country's securities market. That includes a net investment of Rs 85,000 crore in equities and Rs1.12 lakh crore into the debt market.

FIIs, the main driver of the equity market, have helped push up the benchmark BSE Sensex up 1.58 per cent so far this month and the index is now moving above 27,000.

Strong inflows in the recent months have taken the cumulative net investments of FIIs into India to $204 billion, or Rs 9.88 lakh crore, in nearly 22 years.

This is based on the data since November 1992 when the FIIs began investing into Indian markets and includes about $160 billion investments into equities and about $44 billion in debt markets.

From June, FIIs along with sub-accounts and qualified foreign investors have been clubbed together by capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to create a new investor category called FPI (foreign portfolio investor).

PTI