NEW DELHI: Share of Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 9.95 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (up 6.92 per cent) registered robust gains, lifting the BSE Telcom index up in Friday's trade.

The stocks of both the companies surged on reports that Tata Group has agreed to sell its mobile business to Bharti Airtel for free, ending the salt-to-software conglomerate's long-standing attempts to rid itself of this loss-making venture while bolstering the market share and 4G airwaves capacity of the Sunil Mittal-led company.

The S&P BSE Telecom index was trading 4.61 per cent up at 1,485 around 10.35 am (IST). Benchmark Nifty50 index was 0.52 per cent up at 10,149, while Sensex was 0.58 per cent up at 32,368 around that time.

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Idea Cellular (up 4.63 per cent), Bharti Infratel (up 3.71 per cent), Himachal Futuristic Communications (up 3.11 per cent), Reliance Communications (up 3.09 per cent), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (up 1.75 per cent), Vindhya Telelinks (up 1.17 per cent) and Tata Communications (up 1.15 per cent) were also gaining in trade.

However, Sterlite Technologies (down 1.45 per cent), ITI (down 1.10 per cent), Tejas Networks (down 0.27 per cent) and OnMobile Global (down 0.26 per cent) were losing in trade.

Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, Coal India, Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries and Hindustan Unilever were the top gainers among the Sensex stocks.

Dr Reddy's, NTPC, ITC, Maruti Suzuki and Sun Pharma were the top losers.

On the BSE, 1,369 stocks were advancing whereas 821 stocks were lagging and 77 stocks were appearing unchanged.