Shares of Ashoka Buildcon rose as much as 8.25 per cent to Rs 137.70 apiece on BSE in the early trade on Tuesday as a news report suggested the company has raised Rs 1.50 billion from Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure in its gas distribution business.

Ashoka Buildcon has announced Rs 1.50 billion investment commitment into its city gas distribution (CGD) business Unison Enviro by Morgan Stanley India Infrastructure. UEPL builds and operates CGD networks across cities and towns in India, as per company release.

Ashoka Buildcon is one of India's leading infrastructure developers with a portfolio that includes 11 toll road projects and 11 road annuity projects, according to the company's release. The company says its EPC order book stands at Rs 97.63 billion as on September 30, 2018.

UEPL has just started commercial operations of its first CGD project in Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra state. In the recently concluded ninth round of bidding for CGD licenses, UEPL has won two additional CGD licenses, one in Latur and Osmanabad, also in Maharashtra, and one in Chitradurga and Davangere in Karnataka state.

Apart from this, the company's board at its meeting on Monday, approved the issue of non-cumulative, redeemable, taxable, listed, rated securities in the form of non-convertible debentures up to an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1.50 billion on private placement basis.

At 10:48 am, shares of Ashoka Buildcon were trading 3.93 per cent higher at Rs 132.30 on BSE. In comparison, S&P BSE Sensex was trading 0.5 per cent lower at 36,088 levels.