Business

Airline stocks on Wednesday tumbled up to 6.5 per cent after the government extended the lockdown to May 3 leading to the subsequent suspension of all commercial passenger services till then.

The inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) eased to 1 per cent in March from 2.26 per cent in February on sharp fall in food prices in the country.

Earlier, the ESIC had extended the period for filing contributions for the months of February and March till April 15 and May 15 respectively.

The 'essential sectors' of mining, agriculture, manufacturing and utility sectors is said to incur the worst impact due to the coronavirus outbreak.

According to new conditions, the applications for import authorisation should be accompanied with pre-purchase agreement and details of the import for past three years.

At 12:14 pm, D-Mart operator shares stood at Rs 2,273.05, down 5% from their previous close of Rs 2,392.65.

A revival in domestic investment is likely to be delayed given enhanced risk aversion on a global scale, and renewed concerns about financial sector resilience, the agency said.

The move would benefit around 79 lakh subscribers and 3.8 lakh firms with a total outgo of Rs 4,800 crore from the government.

Illiquid stocks are those that cannot be sold easily because they see limited trading. These stocks pose higher risks to investors because it is difficult to find buyers for them as compared to frequently traded shares.

After hitting a low of 29,602.94, the 30-share BSE barometer pared most losses to trade 14.98 points or 0.05 per cent lower at 30,052.23.

The Sensex gained 1,439.12 points to a high of 29,030.07 after resuming trading on Tuesday.

Traders said investor sentiments remain fragile amid concerns over the impact of coronavirus outbreak on the domestic as well as global economy.

The nation is on three-week lockdown ending April 14, which many now feel will have to be extended as more and more coronavirus infections getting reported from across the country.

These testing kits will be deployed across public and private healthcare laboratories identified by the government to scale up access to Covid-19 testing, the company said.

Till March 31, 2020, GSTN had enabled 1,748 tax officers from 18 states/UTs to access office through VPN, a secure way to access office network.

The number of transactions was, however, 6% lower when compared with the previous month. In February 2020, UPI had seen 1.33 billion transactions worth Rs 2.22 trillion.