Mumbai, April 22: Investors can now lap up as much gold as they like, be in the form of physical gold or units in a gold exchange-traded fund.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had allowed mutual funds to launch such schemes, which will invest in gold and gold-related instruments.

Though the scheme was announced earlier, fund houses had been in the dark about the operational guidelines and were waiting for the market regulator to set the rules before offering such schemes to investors.

Sebi has, therefore, paved the way for asset management companies to launch such funds at a time when the precious metal is riding its 25-year peak.

The regulator has issued guidelines on the aspects of valuation, determination of net asset value, the recurring issues and benchmarking of the schemes.

According to the guidelines, the value of such schemes will be based on the market price of gold in the domestic market and will be marked to market on a daily basis.

The market rate of gold in the domestic market would have to be arrived at by converting the price of gold in dollar per ounce ? as provided by the London Bullion Market Association ? into rupee per kg and adding applicable levies, including customs duty, sales tax and octroi, to it.