With the government allowing Indian companies to avail themselves of investment allowance by one more year in the Budget announced on Monday, companies like Reliance Industries, the Adani Group and Tata Steel, which are currently in investment mode, will be the biggest beneficiary of 15% allowance. It will come into effect with retrospective effect from April 1, 2015.

The Income Tax Act specifies that manufacturing companies can avail themselves of the investment allowance at the rate of 15% on investments made in new assets such as plant and machinery exceeding Rs 25 crore so long as the acquisition and installation of the asset is undertaken in the same year. The Bill proposes to do away with the requirement that the asset should be acquired and installed in the same year.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the Government would take a final decision on the Budget proposal to tax 60 per cent of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings of those earning over Rs. 15,000 a month, before it responded to the issue during the debate on the Finance Bill in Parliament.

“We will respond in Parliament…,” Mr. Jaitley said at a post-Budget interactive session with representatives of trade and industry associations, including the CII, FICCI and the Assocham.

Mercedes-Benz India on Wednesday said it will hike prices of its vehicles by up to Rs 5 lakh from March 15 in order to offset the impact of infrastructure cess and luxury tax proposed in the Union Budget 2016-17.

The price increase would be between 3 per cent and 5 per cent depending on the model, leading to a price hike between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.

Bajaj Auto today reported a 9% increase in motorcycle sales at 2,35,282 units in February 2016.

The company had sold 2,16,077 units in the year ago period.

Reliance Industries is nearing the completion of its largest ever capital expenditure program of $46 billion by FY17, paving the way for a multi-year cycle of strong free cash flow generation averaging US$5 billion, which will double its market capitalisation to $100 billion (Rs 6.8 trillion), Morgan Stanley has said. The free cash flow implies an over 11% yield and is the highest among large cap global oil & gas peers under its coverage, it said.

Morgan Stanley said its analysis of the stock price's history over the last 15 years suggests that RIL has typically outperformed once it starts generating free cash flow after its capex mode and a similar cycle is now likely to play out. “We chalk out a potential roadmap for the stock to double to reach market cap of US$100 billion (Rs 6.8 trillion),” said the report dated March 1.

The rupee added to its gains by rising 11 paise to a fresh three-week high of 67.74 against the dollar today on continued selling of the US currency by banks and exporters and a robust opening in the equity market.

Fresh foreign funds inflow supported the local currency, but dollar's strength against others overseas capped the rupee's gain.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has surged 10% to Rs 102 on the BSE after the company announced that it has won an order worth Rs 5,600 crore from Tamil Nadu government.

The Tamil Nadu Government has handed over the Letter of Award (LOA) for setting up of the Main Plant Package for the 2X800 mega watt (Mw) Uppur Supercritical Thermal Power Project, BHEL said in a press release.

Banking shares mainly public sector undertakings (PSUs) have rallied by up to 13% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in early morning trade after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to beef up its capital adequacy by including certain items such as property value, foreign exchange for calculation of its Tier-I capital.

State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda (BOB), Bank of India (BOI), Indian Bank, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank are among few rallied more than 6% on the NSE.

Shares of Hero MotoCorp (HMCL) has moved higher to its 52-week high of Rs 2,834, up 6% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after the company clocked a double digit growth in two-wheeler sales in the month of February 2016.

Bucking the sluggish industry trend, HMCL sold 550,992 units of two-wheeler in February 2016, as compared to 484,769 units in the corresponding month last year, reflecting a robust double digit growth of 13.6%.

Mumbai: Domestic sales of car market leader Maruti Suzuki India Ltd remained almost flat in February over the year-ago period as production at its facilities in Haryana got crippled following the Jat reservation agitation. The maker of Swift and DZire models sold 108,115 units during the month compared with 107,892 units last year, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

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