The RBI on Tuesday said it has launched the latest round of its quarterly Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS) of the manufacturing sector, results of which are used in monetary policy formulation.

The Reserve Bank (RBI) has been conducting the OBICUS of the manufacturing sector on a quarterly basis since 2008.

"The survey provides valuable input for monetary policy formulation," the RBI said while announcing the launch of 54th round of the survey.

The information collected in the survey includes quantitative data on new orders received during the reference quarter, backlog of orders at the beginning of the quarter, pending orders, total inventories with a breakup between finished goods (FG), work-in-progress (WiP) and raw material (RM) inventories, among others.

During this quarter, selected manufacturing companies will be approached by the RBI. The RBI will later release the results pertaining to the January-March 2021 quarter.