NEW DELHI: Extending the winning streak to Friday's session, most sugar stocks were trading with robust gains, buoyed by government's approval of hiking 25 per cent hike in the price of ethanol produced directly from sugarcane juice for blending in petrol. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday raised the procurement price of ethanol derived from 100 per cent sugarcane juice to Rs 59.13 per litre from the current rate of Rs 47.13.

The move would help sugar mills quickly release arrears of cane farmers, which stands at over Rs 13,000 crore, PTI reported.

Shares of Rana Sugars (up 20 per cent), Magadh Sugar Energy (up 20 per cent), Avadh Sugar Energy (up 19.99 per cent), Uttam Sugar Mills (up 19.97 per cent), Simbhaoli Sugars (up 19.94 per cent), Kesar Enterprise (up 19.93 per cent) and Thiru Arooran Sugars (up 19.84 per cent) zoomed up to 20 per cent. K.M.Sugar Mills (up 18.16 per cent), Dalmia Bharat Sugar Industries (up 17.37 per cent), Ponni Sugars (Erode) (up 16.85 per cent), Dwarikesh Sugar Industries (up 16.50 per cent), Dhampur Sugar Mills (up 16.38 per cent), Rajshree Sugars Chemicals (up 15.88 per cent), Bannari Amman Sugars (up 15.60 per cent) and Sakthi Sugars (up 15.51 per cent) jumped over 15 per cent. Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty were up on healthy buying by domestic institutional investors as the industrial production grew at 6.6 per cent in July and retail inflation cooled to a 10-month low. Asian cues too were positive on optimism over China-US trade talks.

The NSE Nifty50 index was trading 85 points up at 11,455 around 10:20 am.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 214 points at 37,932 around the same time.

Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty index, 41 were in the green and nine were in the red. Indiabulls Housing Finance, YES Bank, BPCL, UPL, PowerGrid, HPCL and Grasim Industries were leading among Nifty gainers.