The Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS), 24^th round in the series, was conducted for Q3:2013-14. In all, 1,191 common manufacturing companies (44 Government companies, 847 public limited companies and 300 private limited companies) responded to the survey. The analysis is based on the data on order books, inventory levels for raw materials and finished goods, and capacity utilisation, received from these companies for past five quarters, i.e., Q3:2012-13 to Q3:2013-14.

Highlights:

1. The new orders witnessed substantial growth both on q-o-q as well as y-o-y basis (Table 1).

2. Capacity utilisation (CU), at the aggregate level remained more or less at the previous quarter’s level; it was however, lower when compared with the corresponding period of previous years (Table 2).

3. There is co-movement between capacity utilisation and de-trended Index of Industrial Production (IIP) - Manufacturing (Chart 1).

4. Finished goods inventory to sales ratio declined in Q3 of 2013-14 over the previous quarter but was higher than that in Q3 of the previous year (Table 3).

¹ The 23rd round (Q2:2013-14) survey results were released on January 28, 2014 with the publication “Macroeconomic and Monetary Developments: Third Quarter Review 2013-14” on the RBI Website. The survey results are those of the respondents and are not necessarily shared by the Reserve Bank of India.