Shares of railway PSUs, such as RailTel Corporation of India, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL), and IRCON International, surged up to 8% on Monday, 15 September, as ordering activity in the sector gained momentum.

Heavy trading volumes fueled the rally. Within the first two hours, IRCON, RailTel, and RVNL each saw over 1 crore shares change hands, far exceeding their 20-day averages of 11 lakh, 10 lakh, and 24 lakh shares, respectively.

RailTel announced on 13 September that it secured a Rs 210-crore Letter of Acceptance (LoA) from the Bihar Education Project Council. Just a week earlier, the company confirmed winning multiple other orders worth nearly Rs 1,000 crore, pushing its shares up almost 8%.

RVNL also strengthened after emerging as the lowest bidder for a Rs 169-crore West Central Railway project, with an execution timeline of 540 days.

In the private space, Jupiter Wagons received a Rs 113-crore LoA from the Ministry of Railways to supply 9,000 LHB Axles for railway bogies.

Ordering momentum in the sector has accelerated since Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted that projects worth Rs 77,000 crore are under implementation in the North-east. Adding to the sector’s momentum, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bairabi-Sairang railway line in Mizoram and launched projects worth Rs 8,500 crore in Manipur over the weekend.

At 12:16 pm, the shares of RailTel were trading 5.41% higher, Ircon International were trading 5.96% higher, RVNL were trading 3.83% higher, and Jupiter Wagons were trading 2.80% higher on NSE.