NSO Begins Third CAPEX Survey on Private Investment Plans

The correct answer is the National Statistics Office, which works under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and is running this round as CAPEX 2026, its third such exercise, between October and December. Option A is wrong; the central bank does run its own enterprise and industry surveys, which makes it a tempting choice, but this particular survey of private capital spending intentions belongs to the statistics ministry. Option C is wrong because the policy think tank does not collect primary statistics of this kind, and the survey here is a statutory collection carried out under the Collection of Statistics Act of two thousand eight. Option D is wrong because the markets regulator oversees securities markets and listed company disclosure, not economy-wide statistical surveys. The frame of firms for the survey is built from active companies registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The correct answer is manufacturing. In the second round of the survey it took slightly more than half of the provisional aggregate capital expenditure for that year, a share of 50.17 per cent, worth Rs 5,73,900 crore, which is far ahead of every other activity category. Option A is wrong because information and communication came second with 16.38 per cent, or Rs 1,87,395 crore. Option D is wrong because electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply stood third at 8.96 per cent, or Rs 1,02,448 crore. Option B is wrong because transportation and storage was fourth, at 5.55 per cent or Rs 63,517 crore. It is worth noting that in the first round, manufacturing also led, but with a smaller share of 43.80 per cent, so its lead has widened between the two rounds.

The correct answer is the Collection of Statistics Act, passed in two thousand eight, which gives the statistical system the authority to gather information from enterprises and also obliges it to protect what it gathers. That protection is why unit-level data from this survey are never released and why care is taken that published results cannot identify the firm that supplied a figure. Option A is wrong because the company law governs incorporation, accounts and governance; the ministry that administers it supplies the list of active companies from which the survey frame is drawn, but the survey itself does not run under it. Option C is wrong because the transparency law lets citizens seek information from public authorities and has nothing to do with collecting enterprise statistics. Option D is wrong because that older industrial licensing law regulates industrial undertakings rather than statistical collection.