RBI launches survey to seek info on order books of manufacturing companies

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank today has launched the survey to seek quantitative information on order books, inventories and capacity utilisation of companies in the manufacturing sector, a key input for monetary policy formulation.

The quarterly Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS) is for the reference period July-September 2016-17, the bank said in a statement.

The survey seeks quantitative information on order books, inventories and capacity utilisation, such as, pending order books, backlog order books, total inventories, finished goods inventories, work in progress inventories and installed capacity from companies in the manufacturing activities.

"The information on installed capacity, quantity produced, value of production, etc, is used for calculating the capacity utilisation at industry as well as at an all
India level. The survey provides a significant input to the Reserve Bank in monetary policy formulation," RBI said.

The major manufacturing companies will be approached by the Reserve Bank. Other manufacturing units that are not approached earlier can also participate in this survey round by downloading the survey schedule from RBI website.

In the previous OBICUS survey, 903 manufacturing sector companies had participated the survey. RBI has also launched the 11th pilot round of its Services and Infrastructure Outlook Survey (SIOS).

It seeks assessment of the business situation for the third quarter from the services and infrastructure companies, and their expectations for January-March period.