Mumbai, Feb 25 (IANS): Ahead of the presentation of the railway budget for the next fiscal year, key Indian equity indices opened flat on Thursday, with additional caution due to the expiry of contracts for futures and options trading.

Among the other peers in the Asia-Pacific region, China's Shanghai Composite fell sharply and so did the Shenzhen Composite, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index and Australia's S&P/ASX 200. But Japan's Nikkei 225 and South Korea's Kospi registered gains.

Back home, the sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE opened at 23,105.16 points, as against the previous close at 23,088.93 points. Around an hour into trading, it was quoting at 23,086.56 points, down 2.37 points, or 0.01 percent.

The Nifty of the NSe was quoting at 7,008.35 points down 10.35 points, or 0.15 percent.

"On Wednesday, the US markets closed in the green as oil prices stabilised, helping the index to recover from an intraday decline of some 2 percent. The European markets ended with a steep decline of about 2 percent led by dip in the commodity stocks," Angel Broking said.