Mumbai: Led by banking and public sector undertakings (PSUs) counters, shares recovered smartly on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (May 4, 2004) following emergence of fresh buying by operators and the Sensex rallied by 62.16 points to close at 5,647.15, which snapped three-session losing streak.

Recently battered banking stocks came into limelight on fresh buying by operators as well as retail investors on news that most of the commercial banks have drastically brought down their non-performing assets (NPAs) in 2003-'04.

This could allow these banks to declare dividends without prior approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as per the revised guidelines, dealers said.

Most of the PSUs were also in keen demand on somewhat positive predictions given by one of the TV channels for the BJP-led NDA government ahead of fourth and penultimate round of elections tomorrow.

IT shares, particularly front-line, attracted good buying support due to rising value of US Dollar, which could impact positively on these companies bottom lines.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened remarkably higher at 5,616.41 as against yesterday's close of 5,584.99 and moved up further to a high of 5,677.11 before concluding at 5,647.15, a net rise of 1.11 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also recovered to end at 3,018.41 from previous close of 2,980.77.

Besides Grasim that ended down, other cement counters finished with sharp gains, mainly buoyed by a strong surge in demand, especially in the Northern and Western regions.