Recovery tracker: Weekly gains in vehicle registration, power generation

Freight growth is higher than before

Most weekly indicators of economic activity were in a better place than the previous week as the economy continued to find its way back to normalcy.

There were 1,270 cases in the last 24 hours. There were nearly 350,000 daily cases detected at the Omicron peak in January.

Indians registered 66,000 more vehicles in the week ending March 27, than in the previous one shows government data. The total number of vehicles registered was 372,674. This is 6.8 per cent higher than the 349,033 vehicles registered in the same period in 2019 before the pandemic took hold.

Traffic congestion held steady. There was marginally less traffic congestion in New Delhi, while Mumbai’s traffic congestion inched higher, according to data from global location technology firm TomTom International.

Airlines recorded more passengers flying to destinations within the country. There were 2.5 million air passengers in the latest week compared to 2.4 million passengers in the previous one.

Power generation grew further last week as temperatures continue to rise across the country. Power utilities across the country generated 4,402 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ended March 27, 2022 (based on reporting day data) up 7.7 per cent year-on-year from 4,087 MUs during the corresponding week in FY21. The generation was however up 46.6  per cent over the corresponding week in FY20 and 1.7 per cent higher on a week-on-week basis.

The Indian Railways recorded higher growth in the quantity of goods it carried. Growth was 6.4 per cent compared to 1.4 per cent in the previous week.  Growth in the amount of money it made from carrying these goods was 11.5 per cent compared to 5.4 per cent in the previous week.

Overall mobility appeared to moderate, based on search engine Google’s reports using anonymized location data. Retail and recreation visits were 4.1 per cent higher than they were before the Covid-19 cases first began to rise. This is lower than the previous week’s 10.7 per cent growth.

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way of getting a current picture of the economy. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators. They help measure the immediate economic impact of rising cases or restrictions. Google releases its data with a lag. The latest is as of March 24th. Traffic data is for 28th March, Monday morning 9am. All other data is as of Sunday 27th March.