Sensex in red, slips by over 450 points after Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech

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Updated: May 28, 2020 18:45 IST

The BSE Sensex dropped by over 450 points on Friday minutes after Nirmala Sitharaman presented the first budget of Modi government 2.0. The Sensex had reclaimed the 40,000 mark in early morning trade but those early gains were short-lived.

The 30-share index was trading 462.52 points lower at 39,456. 34 at 1:30 pm. Similarly, the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 137.2 to 11,809.55.

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Top losers in the Sensex pack included Yes Bank, ONGC, NTPC, Vedanta, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors, M&M, Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp and TCS. HUL, Asian Paints and Kotak Bank were the only gainers in the index.

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Presenting the full Union Budget for 2019-20, Sitharaman said India needs to make structural reforms to achieve the target of USD 5 trillion economy in the next few years.

She said it was the right time to consider increasing minimum public shareholding from 25 per cent to 35 per cent.

The Budget also proposed rationalisation and streamlining of KYC norms for Foreign Portfolio Investors to make them investor-friendly.

Sitharaman said the government proposes to initiate steps for electronic fund raising programme for listing of social enterprises and voluntary organisations.

Interoperability of RBI depositories and SEBI depositories is necessary for seamless transfer of treasury bills, she said, adding the government will take necessary measures for the same.

The rupee, meanwhile, depreciated 24 paise to 68.74 against the US dollar.