Recovery tracker: Power generation falls below 2019 level, mobility slows

Weekly indicators of economic activity show a moderation for the second consecutive week with a mild uptick in Covid-19 cases.

Power generation fell below the 2019 corresponding week. Railway freight data, too, slip­ped as did mobility. Other in­dicators like traffic and emis­sions also showed some signs of slowdown in the recovery they had registered after the second wave of Covid-19.

Power generation moder­a­ted week-on-week for the sec­o­nd consecutive week with many parts of the country receiving monsoon rains that reduced power demand. Rest­ricted shopping hours in econ­omically major states like Mah­arashtra also contributed to the fall in demand. In all, 3,935 mil­lion units of electricity were generated in India on a seven-day rolling average for the week ending Sunday, July 25 – down 5.66 per cent from the previous week. The latest week’s num­bers are 0.8 per cent lower than the corresponding period in 2019 and 7 per cent higher than the same week in 2020. Year 2019 is used as it predates Co­vid-19 hitting India (see chart 1).

Last week, fewer people also visited their workplaces; as a result, use of public transport declined on a week-on-week basis. Visits to grocery and pharmacies fell, as more people chose to stay at home over the previous week. Overall, movement remained below 20219 levels.

Almost 77 per cent of workplace visits were back, while use of transit stations was at 85 per cent of 2019 levels. This mobility data is from search engine Google, which tracks people’s movements based on anonymised location data (released with a lag, the latest is as of July 22). Essential shopping, including grocery and pharmacy visits, were 19 per cent above normal vis-à-vis 25 per cent last week. Retail and recreation visits were still down 24 per cent, while visits to parks were down 13 per cent. Commuting also remained depressed and was down 15 per cent on average (see chart 2).

Traffic congestion declined in Delhi and Mumbai last week, which could be partly attri­bu­ted to the monsoon rains. New Delhi traffic was 71 per cent back to nor­mal, while Mum­bai’s was back 63 per cent. Both figures were down on a week-on-week basis. Traffic congestion data, based on stat­istics from location technology firm TomTom International, sug­g­ests Delhi and its suburbs saw more traffic congestion than Mumbai last week (see chart 3).

Railway freight traffic continued to show double digit gains over the same week in 2020, but these gains moderated. The Indian Railways carried 12.4 per cent more goods (in terms of tonnage) during the week ending July 25 than during the same period last year. Earnings from the goods carried were up 18.4 per cent. Both figures were lower than in the previous week (see chart 4).

Business Standard also tracks nitrogen oxide emis­sions (NOx), which are emitted from industries and internal combustion engines that power private and commercial vehicles. The emissions had dropped as the country went into lockdown in March and April 2020, and then again in April and May this year. Delhi emissions last week were 34.5 per cent lower than the 2019 levels based on a seven-day rolling average. NOx emissions in Mumbai were, however, 15.1 per cent higher than the corresponding week in 2019, indicating greater industrial activity in India’s commercial capital (see charts 5, 6).

Business Standard tracks these weekly indicators to various human and economic activity to get a sense of how the Indian economy is recovering from the Covid-19 shock. Official macroeconomic numbers are often released with a lag of many months.