(Reuters) -Jio Blackrock has received approval from India's markets regulator to launch four passive index funds, the Securities and Exchange Board of India's website showed on Wednesday.

The funds will mirror four indices, namely, Nifty Midcap 150, Nifty smallcap 250, Nifty Next 50 and the benchmark index tracking Indian government bonds with 8-13 years maturity.

Jio BlackRock, a joint venture between billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio Financial Services and BlackRock ( BLK ), plans to launch nearly a dozen equity and debt funds in India by year-end, Reuters reported last week.

The asset manager is entering the country's 72.2-trillion-rupee ($844 billion) mutual fund market with a mix of active and passive offerings, aiming to leverage its digital reach to sidestep traditional distributor networks.

The asset manager has raised over $2.1 billion across three debt mutual fund schemes, attracting investments from 90 institutional investors and 67,000 retail investors so far.

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Mrigank Dhaniwala)