The BSE Sensex on Saturday plummeted over a 1,000 points, tracking a massive selloff in capital goods and financial stocks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for 2020-21.
The Sensex closed at 39,735.53, down by 987.96 points.
The indices were largely flat during the early hours of trade and started to decline significantly around 1 pm.
The budget comes at a crucial time as the economy is going through a severe slowdown and consumer sentiment is significantly low.
According to an earlier PTI report, ITC was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, tanking 6 per cent, followed by HDFC, L&T, SBI, ICICI Bank and ONGC. On the other hand, TCS, HUL, Tech Mahindra and Infosys bucked the market trend to trade with gains.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced cuts in income tax rates for individuals and scrapping of dividend distribution tax (DDT) besides a host of measures to reverse the falling economic growth.
According to PTI, IDBI Bank share price rose more than 17 percent after the government announced that it will sell its stake in the bank. The data available on BSE shows that the government held a 47.11 per cent stake in IDBI Bank as of December 31, 2019, while Life Insurance Corporation of India held a 51 per cent stake.
(With inputs from agencies)
