So do they still make sense? For most investors in lower tax brackets, or those who specifically value the flexibility of exiting without a lock-in (unlike a fixed deposit's break-before-maturity penalties), debt funds can still be reasonable. They also offer easier partial withdrawals and, in many cases, marginally better post-expense returns than comparable FDs, even without the old tax edge.
Where debt funds lose their appeal is for investors purely optimising for tax efficiency who are in the higher tax brackets — for them, the gap between debt fund taxation and, say, PPF's tax-free returns, or even a simple FD's more predictable outcome, has narrowed considerably.
The practical takeaway: debt funds are no longer a clear tax-advantaged alternative to FDs the way they used to be, but they're not obsolete either — the right choice now depends more on liquidity needs and diversification than on chasing a tax break that no longer exists.