📊 Economy & FinanceMAINS · GS3.1

NSO CAPEX survey pegs private investment momentum

The second forward-looking survey from the National Statistics Office estimates Rs 11.44 lakh crore of private corporate capital spending for 2025-26, with most of it self-financed.

What happened

The National Statistics Office (NSO), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, released the results of the second round of its Forward-Looking Survey on Private Corporate Sector CAPEX Investment Intentions. The survey period was October to December 2025.
The headline estimate: provisional aggregate capital expenditure by India's large private companies for the current financial year 2025-26 is Rs 11,43,879 crore (about Rs 11.44 lakh crore).
For the year just ended, 2024-25, enterprises had intended to spend Rs 180.2 crore each and actually spent Rs 173.5 crore each, giving an overall realisation ratio of 96.3% — intentions translated almost fully into actual spending.
Looking ahead, companies' stated intention for 2026-27 is Rs 9,55,281 crore, a figure the NSO reads as conservative because firms typically under-report future plans.
The financing pattern is the survey's most quoted finding: internal accruals fund 65.35% of the planned capex, with domestic debt a distant second at 23.25%.
The survey is a sample inquiry of large enterprises, with a final sampling frame of 14,257 companies drawn from Ministry of Corporate Affairs registration data and filtered on turnover thresholds.

Background & context

For decades India lacked a dedicated, forward-looking instrument to read where private corporate investment was heading. Investment data arrived only after the fact — through company balance sheets, the gross fixed capital formation series in the national accounts, or bank-credit flows — none of which told policymakers what firms intended to spend in the year ahead. Private corporate capital expenditure (capex) is the single most-watched driver of the investment cycle, because it signals business confidence, future capacity, and ultimately growth and jobs. The absence of a real-time read on intentions was a long-standing gap in India's statistical system.

To fill it, the NSO launched the first Forward-Looking Survey on Private Corporate Sector CAPEX Investment Intentions, conducted between November 2024 and January 2025 (often called the CAPEX-2024 survey). The release reported here is the second round, conducted October to December 2025. The instrument now offers a rolling, year-on-year read of investment intentions, and because each round revisits a retained panel of the same firms, it can compare what companies said they would spend against what they actually spent.

The NSO is the central statistical agency of the country, housed within the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). It compiles the national accounts (GDP), runs the price indices, and conducts the large household and enterprise surveys that anchor official economic data. This CAPEX survey sits alongside MoSPI's other flagship enterprise and household inquiries — the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) — but it is distinct in being forward-looking: it captures stated future intentions, not only what has already happened. Confidentiality is built in: on the recommendation of the Steering Committee of NSS Surveys, unit-level (firm-by-firm) data from the survey is not released, only the aggregated estimates.

For Prelims

Full name: Forward-Looking Survey on Private Corporate Sector CAPEX Investment Intentions.
Conducted by: National Statistics Office (NSO), under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
Round: This is the second round (survey period October–December 2025). The first round ran November 2024 to January 2025.
Headline number: 2025-26 provisional aggregate capex estimated at Rs 11,43,879 crore.
Realisation ratio (2024-25): 96.3% — actual Rs 173.5 crore per enterprise against intended Rs 180.2 crore per enterprise.
Next-year intention (2026-27): Rs 9,55,281 crore (treated as a conservative floor; only about 78.3% of responding firms reported a next-year plan).
Financing mix (2025-26): internal accruals 65.35% · domestic debt 23.25% · domestic equity 3.78% · foreign debt 2.38% · FDI route 1.04%.
Investment strategy (2025-26): 48.63% of firms focused on core assets; 38.36% on value addition to existing assets; 14.54% on opportunistic assets; about 1% on distressed assets / NPLs.
Objective of capex (2025-26): about 60.13% for income generation; 42.12% for upgradation of existing capacity; 7.2% for diversification.
Green & future tech: 6.62% of firms invested in green energy (solar, wind, biomass); 5.83% in robotic equipment in manufacturing; 2.83% in robotics across all sectors.
Sampling frame: 14,257 enterprises, built from active companies registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), filtered on turnover thresholds — manufacturing ≥ Rs 400 crore, trade ≥ Rs 300 crore, others ≥ Rs 100 crore.
Sample size: 7,486 enterprises (5,795 census sector + 1,691 sample sector), stratified into 17 industry groups by principal business activity.
Methodology: stratified design; census enumeration of large/high-asset strata; the remaining sample sector drawn by Simple Random Sampling Without Replacement (SRSWOR). A fixed panel of 3,064 firms retained from the first round enables consistent trend analysis.
Data & confidentiality: results published as a booklet on mospi.gov.in; unit-level data is not disseminated, on the recommendation of the Steering Committee of NSS Surveys.

What it is NOT: This is a survey of intentions and realised plans of private corporate firms — it is not a measure of total economy-wide investment. It does not capture government (public-sector) capital expenditure, which is reported separately through the Union Budget; nor does it cover the unincorporated/informal sector or households. It is not the same as Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) in the national accounts, though it informs the read on the corporate slice of it. It is also not the RBI's capex study based on bank-sanctioned project finance — that is a separate, finance-side proxy. And the 96.3% figure is a realisation ratio (actual vs intended), not a growth rate.

The comparative set (forward-looking economic-sentiment instruments to know): the NSO CAPEX survey joins a family of intention/sentiment readings — the RBI's Industrial Outlook Survey, Consumer Confidence Survey, and OBICUS (Order Books, Inventories and Capacity Utilisation Survey); the RBI's study of corporate investment intentions from project finance; the PMI (Purchasing Managers' Index) compiled privately; and the national-accounts GFCF series for realised investment. Among these, the NSO survey is unique as the official, government-run, firm-level forward-looking capex inquiry. For pairings, remember the lineage: survey → NSO → MoSPI; company register used for the frame → MCA; confidentiality body → Steering Committee of NSS Surveys.

For UPSC: The NSO CAPEX survey is a new (second-round) official forward-looking instrument measuring private corporate investment intentions; the must-remember facts are the Rs 11.44 lakh crore 2025-26 estimate, the 96.3% realisation ratio, and that internal accruals dominate financing at ~65% — signalling firms are funding expansion from their own profits rather than fresh debt or FDI.

Why it matters

The survey answers a question that has long dogged India's growth debate: is the private-sector investment cycle finally turning up? For years after the twin-balance-sheet stress of the 2010s, private capex stayed subdued while government capital spending did most of the heavy lifting. A high realisation ratio of 96.3% suggests that, at least among large firms, stated intentions are now being followed through with actual spending — a sign of confidence rather than hesitation.

The financing mix is the deeper signal. With internal accruals funding 65.35% of capex and bank and bond debt only 23.25%, firms are investing largely out of retained profits, with very little reliance on FDI (1.04%) or foreign debt (2.38%). That points to strong corporate balance sheets but also to a banking system whose share in funding the investment cycle has thinned — a structural point about how India's investment is being financed. The data feeds directly into evidence-based policymaking: government agencies can read emerging investment trends, industry bodies can benchmark, and the figures support the Reserve Bank's and the Finance Ministry's reading of the growth outlook. The forward look at 2026-27 (Rs 9.55 lakh crore, treated as a conservative floor) lets policymakers gauge momentum a year ahead rather than waiting for the national accounts to confirm it after the fact.

Equally telling is what the survey shows firms are spending on. Nearly half (48.63%) are putting money into core assets and another 38.36% into value addition — capacity creation and expansion, not just maintenance. The small but tracked share investing in green energy (6.62%) and robotics (5.83% in manufacturing) offers an early read on the energy transition and automation showing up in real corporate balance sheets. Together these make the survey a practical input for understanding the trajectory of inclusive growth, industrial capacity, and the quality of the investment that underpins jobs.

For Mains

Substantiation

In any answer on India's investment cycle or the revival of private capex, the Rs 11.44 lakh crore 2025-26 estimate and the 96.3% realisation ratio are precise, official figures to anchor the claim that corporate investment intentions are now being acted upon.

Data

The financing split — internal accruals 65.35%, domestic debt 23.25%, FDI just 1.04% — is hard data for the argument that Indian firms are self-financing expansion from retained profits, with implications for the role of the banking sector and external capital in the investment cycle.

Exemplification

The survey itself exemplifies the strengthening of India's statistical system — a new forward-looking instrument that captures intentions, not just outcomes — useful in answers on data governance and evidence-based policymaking.

Problematisation

The thin share of FDI and bank credit in capex financing flags a gap: the investment cycle leans on a narrow base of cash-rich large firms, raising the question of how to broaden investment beyond them and revive intermediated (bank/market) financing.

Deploys into: the revival of the private investment cycle · sources and structure of corporate financing in India · the role of official statistics in evidence-based policymaking (GS3.1 — planning, growth and investment).

Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation · 2026-03-23 · PRID 2243942 · PIB source ↗