Mumbai, Oct 9 (IANS) The Sensex jumped over 450 points on Wednesday led by strong buying in banks and financial stocks.

The cabinet on Wednesday hiked the dearness allowance (DA) for government employees by 5 per cent.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the government has hiked Dearness Allowance (DA) by 5 per cent, raising it from 12 per cent to 17 per cent.

ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and IndusInd Bank were trading over 4 to 5 per cent higher.

At 2.17 p.m.,the Sensex was up 459.59 points at 37,991.57 while the Nifty gained over 125 points to 11,251.80.

--IANS ravi/in