On expected lines, Indian stock markets opened on a positive note on Monday, a day after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council held its 17th meeting, giving partial relief to hotels on taxes. Shares of hotel companies such as Kamat Hotels, Leela Venture, Indian Hotel Co (owner of Taj hotels) were trading with gains on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
At around 10.20 am, Hotel Leela Venture was up 2.18 percent at Rs 23.40, Kamat Hotels was trading 2.31 percent higher at Rs 53.15 and Indian Hotels Co had gained 1.73 percent.
The BSE Sensex was up 154 points, of 0.50 percent, at 31, 209, led by Adani Ports, Reliance Industries, TCS and Tata Steel.
On Sunday, the GST Council fixed 12 percent as the rate for hotels charging daily room tariff up to Rs 7,500, which was earlier Rs 5,000. Rooms with a tariff of above Rs 7,500 will attract 28 percent, as decided earlier by the apex decision-making body.
Further, the Council also lowered the tax rate from 28 percent to 18 percent on restaurants in five-star and luxury hotels.
The Rs 521-crore initial public offering (IPO) of CDSL opens on Monday (June 19) and closes on Wednesday. Most of the brokerages have a positive view of the IPO and see gains on the listing.
Stocks that hit a fresh 52-week high on Monday included ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, South India Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, BEML and Colgate-Palmolive.
BEML is the supplier of coaches (trains) to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) that recently completed its Phase I comprising Green Line and Purple Line. The 11-km stretch of Green Line (overall 24.2 km, 24 stations) was inaugurated last Saturday.
In March this year, BEML won an order to supply coaches worth Rs 1,421 crore from BMRCL. The company is scheduled to complete the supplies by December, 2018.
Besides BMRCL, the company has also supplied coaches to Delhi and and Jaipur Metro.
