1. The mutual fund that you have chosen has been in market for at least from the last five. 2. The mutual fund you are planning to invest into should be operated by your bank 3. Choose a Fund house which is reputable and recognizable with a huge amount of corpus as their Capital. 4. Do research on plans and avoid those which involves high risks,volatility and low liquidity. 5. Check out plans such as ELSS that can help you to avoid heavy tax payments. 6. Check out for funds with good ranking accredited by CRISIL funds ranking between 1-3 are considered good.