MUMBAI: Amid much volatility on Thursday as the Union Budget 2018-19 was presented, the key Indian equity indices provisionally closed trade in the red with heavy selling pressure in consumer durables, banking and healthcare stocks.

The wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) fell by 10.80 points or 0.10 per cent to provisionally close (at 3.30 pm) at 11,016.90 points.

On the BSE, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) closed at 35,906.66 points − down 58.36 points or 0.16 per cent from its previous session’s close. The Sensex touched a high of 36,256.83 points and a low of 35,501.74 points during the intra-day trade.

The BSE market breadth was bearish with 1,454 declines and 1,324 advances.

At one point, both the indices plunged after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his Budget speech long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax rate at 10 per cent for gains exceeding Rs1 lakh.

Meanwhile in a significant admission of fiscal slippage with implications for pushing inflation, the government on Thursday revised upwards its fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 to 3.5 per cent of the GDP, or the equivalent of Rs5.9 lakh crore.

The announcement of a higher target, in place of the 3.2 per cent for the current fiscal announced earlier, was made by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the Budget 2018-19 in the Lok Sabha.

“The revised estimate of fiscal deficit for 2017-18 is at Rs5.9 lakh crore, or at 3.5 per cent (of GDP),” Jaitley said, explaining that a main cause of the fiscal slippage was that indirect tax revenues after the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax were only available for 11 months of the current fiscal.

“There has been a shortfall also in non tax revenue, part of which has been made up by higher direct tax collections and higher disinvestment income this year,” he said.

The Finance Minister placed the revised extimate of government expenditure for the fiscal at Rs21.57 lakh crore against the earlier budget estimate of Rs 21.47 lakh crore.

Indo-Asian News Service