BENGALURU, May 6 Reuters Indian shares inched higher in choppy trading on Monday, as a drop in the stateowned lenders limited gains from the country39;s information technology stocks on rising hopes of U.S. rate cuts.

The bluechip Nifty 50 edged 0.1 higher to 22,499 points as of 1125 a.m. IST, while the SP BSE Sensex increased by 0.3 to 74,081.

Seven major sectoral indexes out of 13 were trading in the green.

The Nifty PSU index, which houses stateowned banks, slid 4 after the Reserve Bank of India39;s draft guidelines on project finance proposed lenders set aside higher provisions for underconstruction infrastructure projects.

Power Finance Corp, REC and IREDA fell between 4 and 10.

Since PSU banks have higher exposure to corporate and infrastructure loans, it will hurt their margins if the norms are implemented. That39;s why stateowned banks are reacting negatively, Siddhartha Khemka, Head Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said.

At near record highs and with results mostly justifying elevated valuations, there is some bit of profit booking which is normal.

On the flip side, heavyweight financial stocks were up 0.2, buoyed by a 5 jump in Kotak Mahindra Bank after it beat quarterly profit estimates.

Meanwhile, U.S. ratesensitive IT stocks ticked 1 higher, after coolerthanexpected U.S. job growth data on Friday raised investor expectations to two Federal Reserve rate cuts this year, up from just one cut before the data.

Among other stocks,…