As the last date of filing income tax approaches, tax saving schemes which also offer the benefit of equity market growth would be the priority for investors.

Among such tax saving schemes, Franklin Tax Shield is one such scheme which sticks to a clear mandate of investing in large-sized companies which are not only attractive on valuations but also generate increasing cash flows. The scheme's fund managers Lakshmikanth Reddy and R Janakiraman consistently follow a bottom-up approach in picking stocks. Almost 70% of the scheme's portfolio is dedicated to large-sized companies. This lends stability to the portfolio. Besides this, close to 25% of the scheme's portfolio is invested in mid-and-small-sized companies. These companies also play a crucial role in boosting the scheme's returns. crucial role in boosting the scheme's ret This strategy has worked for the scheme and it has beaten its benchmark Nifty 500 in the past one year, three-year and five year by a reasonably good margin. In the pas t one-year, three-year and five-year periods, the scheme has given 23.1%, 17.6% and 15% returns respectively, while its benchmark index has given returns 23.7%, 16.8% and 12.5% respectively.