In his budget speech, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday proposed to hike excise duty on various lengths of cigarettes between 2.5% to 6% against expectation of 8-10%.

The company's net profit in the corresponding quarter of the last financial year stood at Rs. 2,503.76 crore while the income from operations was registered at 12,887.78 crore.

The stock is less than 3% away from its record high of Rs 273 touched on February 28, 2015 in intra-day trade.

Spices under the brand are tested for 450 chemicals, toxins and other contaminants as against only nine parameters that are required to be tested in India. Besides, the company is also all set to enter the fruits, vegetables and seafood segment this year, and ITC MasterChef is likely to be the umbrella brand.

Buoyed by the successful launches of brands such as Classmates, Sunfeast and Aashirvaad, which are now Rs 1,000 crore-Rs 3,000 crore labels, the company is looking to expand footprints in existing as well as new categories, such as fresh fruits, vegetables and sea foods businesses, to meet the "audacious" goal that it has set for itself.

The integrated consumer goods manufacturing facility is being built on an area of 700,000 sq ft at Khordha district in Odisha. The firm will roll out ITC's food brands like Aashirvaad, Bingo, Sunfeast, YiPPee! from the unit, a company statement said.

Luxury items like white goods, soaps, shampoos, etc. which currently attract taxes in the range of 30% - 35%, will now fall in the 28% slab. Coal, luxury goods (luxury cars, etc.) and “sin” goods like tobacco, alcohol, etc. would attract cess over and above GST.

The current rate of taxation on cigarettes is around 64% and 81% on chewing tobacco.

In the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal year, the company had posted a net profit of Rs 2262.50 crore on a standalone basis. For the period under review, ITC’s revenue from operations surged by 7.8% at Rs 13,491.37 crore as against the earning of Rs 12,511.76 crore.