Investors with horizon of 6-12 months can consider following scripts for their investment. These companies have potential to give higher returns than index over a long term.

Corporate Highlights - Reliance Infrastructure has secured an order worth Rs 7200 crore ($1.6 billion) to build a 2,400 megawatt power plant in south India for group firm Reliance Power . Reliance Power is setting up the gas-based power plant at Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh state, with generation expected by end-2011. With this contract, Reliance Infrastructure said its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) order backlog stood at Rs 30,700 crore.

• State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is losing Rs 238 crore per day on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates. IOC and its sister PSUs, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum, sell diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at rates way lower than their imported cost to help government keep general price inflation under check.

• In a bid to end fuel woes of power plants in Andhra Pradesh, state-owned gas utility GAIL India will supply gas to the electricity generating units by swaping Reliance Industries' KG-D6 gas with LNG imported. In a complex swapping arrangement, GAIL will divert 2.594 million cubic meters per day of natural gas from Reliance's eastern offshore KG-D6 fields that is currently being supplied to consumers in western and northern India, to power plants in Andhra Pradesh.

• Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Communications has drawn the first tranche of Rs 3,000 crore ($665 million) from China Development Bank.

Economic Highlights - Food price index rose 9.42% and the fuel price index climbed 12.79% in the year to March 5, government data on Thursday showed. Annual food inflation in early March eased from 9.52% recorded in the previous week as prices of onions and milk fell, while fuel inflation accelerated, on a jump in coking coal prices, from 9.48% a week earlier. The primary articles price index was up 12.31%, compared with an annual rise of 13.96% in the prior week.

• Home and auto loans may cost more as the RBI raised its short-term lending and borrowing rates by 25 basis points each yet again with a view to check spiralling prices of essential commodities. This is the eighth time since March 2010 the RBI has resorted to policy rate hike to tackle inflation, which is ruling above 8%, much above the comfort level of 5-6%. In view of the rising fuel prices, following unrest in the middle-East and high food prices in the domestic market, the RBI has upped its March end inflation forecast to 8% from 7% projected earlier.