Business

The budget estimate was Rs 1,93,407 crore but Rs 14,904 crore was slashed owing to the strain on the economy.

Govt said it will ensure that the digitised beneficiaries lists are available and bank account is opened for each beneficiary.

Individually, P Chidambaram has presented the Union Budget for the eighth time, the second-highest by any Finance Minister.

The rupee had lost 23 paise to end at 54.09 in Tuesday's trade due to month-end dollar demand.

The regulator has also sought industry view if carriage charge should be passed on to the person making the call to the roaming customer.

The rates exclude development charge and busy season charges which essentially means that actual hike for oil companies would be higher.

Bansal had on January 22 hiked passenger fares across-the-board after the Railways faced a loss of about Rs 25,000 crore in the passenger segment.

A railway wagon factory was announced to be set up at Sitalapalli in the 2011-12 Rail Budget.

The MRP abatement should be corrected by increasing the abatement from existing rate to 40 per cent on IT products.

Similarly, the broad-based-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty rose by 3.35 points, or 0.06 per cent, to 5,943.05.

Real estate contributes 5.5 pc to the GDP and together with the construction industry the share goes up to 11 pc.

Forex dealers said a higher opening in the stock market amid foreign fund outflows put pressure on the rupee.

SBI has the maximum exposure, over Rs 1,600 crore, in the Vijay Mallya-led airline, followed by PNB.

UK drinks group Diageo agreed last November to buy a 53.4 per cent stake in United Spirits Ltd for $2.1 billion under a two-stage process.

The SEBI on Wednesday cracked down on Sahara group, freezing more than 100 bank accounts of two of its companies.

The Sensex closed at 19608.08, up 47 points after slipping from an intra-day high of 19723.01.