MUMBAI: Mirroring the bullish sentiment, the stock market barometer 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange sensitive index or Sensex closed at 3,337.31, representing a gain of 34.07 points or 1.03 percent over its previous session's close. The market index has gained 155.34 points or nearly five percent in the last four sessions following large-scale buying in shares of old-economy and select technology companies. The market mood in the last few sessions has been boosted by hopes that normal monsoon rains would increase demand for industrial and consumer goods and take the economy to a higher trajectory of growth. The quantity of rainfall in the June-September period is crucial for the farm sector that accounts for nearly a quarter of the gross domestic product and employs 70 percent of the country's over one billion population. India's economy grew by only 4.4 percent in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003 mainly due to a 3.1 percent fall in agriculture produce, as the worst drought in three decades ravaged large parts of the country. The Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, hopes that the economy will expand by six percent in the current fiscal year. The bank's projection is based on the assumption of satisfactory spatial distribution of monsoon. The monsoon arrived in Kerala at 11.30 a.m. Sunday, covering the region from Thiruvananthapuram to Kannur. Kozhikode received the highest rainfall of 14 cm on Sunday while Thiruvananthapuram recorded the lowest with a mere two mm. Over the next few days, the monsoon clouds are likely to cover the entire southern part of the country before moving to all other regions. "The monsoon rain has proved to be a great positive trigger for the market. Investors are betting on normal monsoon this year after last year's worst drought in four decades badly affected the economy," said a stock market analyst. "I think over the next few trading sessions, the market operators would closely track the advancement of monsoon in other parts of the country," the analyst added. In the old economy sector, shares of cement companies such as Larsen and Toubro gained 6.3 percent to touch 229.80 and Associated Cement Companies ended 2.7 higher at 152.05 on fresh buying interest. Major cement plants reported an impressive 17.2 percent jump in cement dispatches in May this year to 10.56 million tonnes, up from 9.01 million tonnes recorded in the same period last month. Consumer goods giant Hindustan Lever rose 4.5 percent to 169.10 and Colgate Palmolive closed with a gain of nearly one percent at 149 on hopes that normal monsoon would boost their products' demand in the rural market. State-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) gained 3.3 percent to touch 256.15 after the company said Monday it had bagged a 7.72 billion order for setting up a captive power plant for Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. As part of the agreement, BHEL will set up a 120 MW integrated captive co-generation power plant for Indian Oil's refinery expansion and petrochemical projects at Panipat in Haryana. In the tech sector, Infosys Technologies, India's largest listed software exporter, ended 1.04 percent higher at 2,983.65 on institutional buying interest.
Source: IANS