L&T, NCC gain up to 2.5%, Ashoka Buildcon surges 11% on govt's infra push

Shares of infrastructure stocks such as Larsen & Toubro (L&T), NCC, Ashoka Buildcon, among others traded in the green on Monday after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech on Saturday, unveiled plans for a push to the infrastructure sector. The goal, he said, is to make India a global manufacturing hub. While a Rs 110 trillion pipeline of national infrastructure projects is being created to boost the economy and create jobs, nearly 7,000 projects in different sectors had been identified. In a way, it will be like a new revolution in infrastructure, the prime minister said. READ MORE

At 09:36 AM, L&T was trading nearly 1.5 per cent higher at Rs 996.35 on the BSE. The stock hit a high of Rs 1,007 in the early deals, up 2.5 per cent against Friday's close of Rs 982.15. NCC was ruling over 2 per cent higher at Rs 32.75. Ashoka Buildcon, on the other hand, surged nearly 11 per cent to Rs 78.50 while MEP Infrastructure was up around 4.5 per cent to Rs 18.70 on the BSE. 

During the quarter ended June 2020, NCC's consolidated net profit slumped 76.5 per cent to Rs 17.01 crore on a 44.7 per cent decline in net sales to Rs 1,297.60 crore in the year-ago period. Consolidated pre-tax loss stood at Rs 11.97 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against pre-tax profit of Rs 113.65 crore in Q1 June 2019.  READ MORE
 

Other stocks, too, were trading with decent gains. For instance, Dilip Buildcon was up over 1 per cent at Rs 354.75 while J Kumar Infraprojects rallied 2.6 per cent to Rs 103.90. Reliance Infrastructure was trading 0.65 per cent higher while RITES was trading over 1 per cent higher at Rs 251. 

"The declaration that the government proposes to spend Rs 110 lakh crore on National Infrastructure Pipeline gives a clear indication that India’s growth revival, going forward, will be led by infra push. From the market perspective, companies that would gain from "Atmanirbhar push" would be the focus of investors’ attention, as has been the case lately, said Dr. V K Vijaya Kumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. 

The PM has shown a clear pathway for economic recovery through a huge infrastructure investment pipeline of Rs 110 trillion on 7,000 projects, said Assocham's Secretary General Deepak Sood.