A Rs 50 lakh portfolio started at 60/40 equity-debt; after equity rose 60% and debt 7% over two years it sits near 69/31, outside a 5-point band. How much must move, and how can a Rs 60,000 monthly SIP do the work with minimal tax?

She is 4.2 points outside the band; Rs 6.4 lakh must move from equity to debt to reach 60%, and the SIP can do most of it. Selling it all at once realises about Rs 2.38 lakh of gains and about Rs 14,187 of tax on the assumed rules. Redirecting the whole SIP to debt gets her inside the band in 8 months and to target in 18, with no sale. Best: sell Rs 2.9 lakh now, within the exemption, to re-enter the band, then let the SIP finish the job in about 10 months.

Equity grew faster, so it is now a bigger share of her money than she chose. A household that budgeted a third of its spending on eating out and finds it has crept to half has not decided anything; it has drifted. Equity is 69.2% of Rs 69.4 lakh against a 60% target, 4.2 points past the 65% edge of her band. The band exists so that she does not trade on every wobble, and the breach is the signal that the portfolio now carries about 15% more equity risk than she signed up for: a 30% equity fall would cost her Rs 14.4 lakh today against Rs 12.5 lakh at target.

Target equity is 60% of Rs 69.4 lakh, Rs 41.64 lakh. Rs 6.36 lakh must move from equity to debt to reach target, and Rs 2.89 lakh just to get back to the 65% edge of the band. Selling triggers tax. Her equity has a cost of Rs 30 lakh against a value of Rs 48 lakh, so 37.5% of anything she sells is gain. A Rs 6.36 lakh sale realises about Rs 2.38 lakh of gain; after an assumed Rs 1.25 lakh exemption, 12.5% on the rest is about Rs 14,187. Modest, but avoidable. A Rs 2.89 lakh sale realises only about Rs 1.08 lakh, inside the exemption, so it costs nothing in tax.

Redirect it. New money changes the weights without selling anything, so there is no gain to tax. If the entire Rs 60,000 goes to debt and markets stay flat, equity falls to 65% of the portfolio after 8 months and to 60% after 18 months. That is slow: for most of a year and a half she carries more equity than her rule allows, and if equity keeps rising, the SIP alone never catches up. The honest trade is between tax saved and time spent outside the band.

The mixed route. Sell Rs 2.9 lakh of equity now, which realises about Rs 1.08 lakh of gain and sits inside the Rs 1.25 lakh exemption, move it to debt, and switch the full SIP to debt until equity reaches 60%, about 10 months. Then restore the 60/40 SIP split. Use the exemption every year: a sale sized to Rs 1.25 lakh of gain each financial year keeps the band honest at no tax cost. The limits: the projections assume flat markets, a rally would lengthen the months and a fall would shorten them; the SIP buys debt at today's yields, which is fine for a rebalancing step but should not override her goal timeline; and the rates and exemption are assumptions to confirm.