NEW DELHI: Shares of Bil Energy Systems, Escorts, Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore, IIFL Holdings, Larsen & Toubro, Lux Industries and Pfizer hit fresh 52-week highs on NSE in Thursday's trade ahead of Union Budget 2018.

Shares of Vakrangee, Reliance Communications, GMR Infrastructure and ICICI Bank were the most traded stocks on NSE in morning trade on Thursday.

Benchmark indices climbed on Thursday morning as investors keenly awaited the tabling of Budget 2018 later in the day.

The market chose to shrug off concerns over likely re-introduction of LTCG tax on equities.

There were hopes that the FM Jaitley may refrain from announcing big dole-outs his last full Budget before the 2019 General Elections.

The NSE Nifty index was trading 35 points up at 11,063, while the BSE Sensex was 147 points up at 36,112 around 09:35 am (IST).

Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty50 index, 33 were in the green, while 17 were in the red.

In the Nifty index, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and IndusInd Bank were the top gainers.

On the contrary, Vedanta, Bharti Infratel, Tata Steel, Lupin and Cipla were down in the Nifty50 index.