Live Market Updates: Sensex, Nifty turn flat while FM continues Budget speech

Moneycontrol Bureau

The market has turned flat while the Budget 2015 speech is still on. The Sensex is up 93.46 points or 0.3 percent at 29313.58, and the Nifty up 20.75 points or 0.2 percent at 8865.35. About 1173 shares have advanced, 1195 shares declined, and 179 shares are unchanged.

IT, Auto, Pharma and FMCG indices are in the red. Coal India, Hero, Tata Power, Tata Motors and Hindalco are among laggards in the Sensex. Tata Steel, HDFC, Axis Bank, ONGC and BHEL are top gainers.

Presenting the Budget for 2015, Arun Jaitley has allocated Rs 25,000 crore for rural infrastructure. He has proposed Rs 1.25 lakh crore public investment for FY16.  Investment in infra will go up by Rs 70,000 crore and has proposed tax-free infra bonds for road, railways & infra projects.

The Finance Minister said non-banking finance corporations (NBFC) will be treated at par with banks if they have a size of over Rs 500 crore. He also proposed Rs 20,000 crore for Mudra Bank to boost SMEs. Jaitley proposed to allocate Rs 5,300 crore for micro-irrigation, Rs 25,000 crore for rural infrastructure and Rs 34,699 cr for MNREGA. He also proposed Rs 8.5 lakh crore Farm Credit in FY16