Construction stocks rallied in Wednesday's trade as the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, had on Tuesday approved an $82.2-billion investment plan.
Stressing that the macro fundamentals of the economy are strong, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the ₹5.35 lakh crore BharatMala Pariyojana to construct 34,800 km of highways and an aggressive ₹2.11 lakh crore capitalisation plan for public sector banks.
Larsen & Toubro was the third-largest gainer in the index as it rose as much as 6.3 per cent. Besides L&T, shares of major road builders such as Ashoka Buildcon Ltd, Sadbhav Infrastructure Projects Ltd and J Kumar Infraprojects Ltd also gained.
The BharatMala project envisages an outlay of ₹5.35 lakh crore over a five-year period till 2021-22. “While ₹2.09 lakh crore will be raised as debt from the market, ₹1.06 lakh crore of private investments would be mobilised through public private investments and ₹2.19 lakh crore is to be provided out of accruals to the Central Road Fund, Toll Operate Transfer monetisation proceeds and toll collections of NHAI,” Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa had said.