Recovery tracker: Workplace visits up 26%, vehicle registrations 2%

Fewer flights and air passengers in the latest week compared to the previous one

Multiple weekly economic activity indicators trended higher during the latest week.

Workplace visits were 25.9 per cent higher than the baseline value for early 2020, before the pandemic took hold, shows data from search engine Google. It uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. Retail and recreation visits were lower than the previous week. Grocery and pharmacy visits grew.
 

People registered 395,000 vehicles. This is 2.1 per cent higher than the 386,000 vehicles registered in the same period in 2019. The number also showed a week-on-week increase. There were 293,000 vehicles registered in the previous week.

The Indian Railways registered a 7.3 per cent increase in the quantity of goods carried. The amount of money it made from carrying these goods, called freight revenue, was up 16.1 per cent.

Electricity consumption in the country rose last week and the gap over 2019 levels widened due to higher generation. The power producers generated 4,517 million units (MU) of electricity per day on average in the latest week based on reporting day data. It was 4,314 million units per day in the previous week. In comparison, power generation was 3,807 MU per day during the corresponding week in 2019. 
 

Major metros recorded a fall in traffic congestion. Monday morning 9 a.m. traffic congestion in New Delhi was 36 per cent lower than 2019, compared to the 28 per cent gap seen in the previous week. Mumbai traffic congestion was down 32 per cent compared to the previous week’s 27 per cent gap.

There were fewer flights and fewer passengers in the latest week than before. The average number of daily flights dropped to 2,597 from 2,637 in the previous week. The average number of daily passengers fell to 331,000 from 347,000.

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way of getting a weekly picture of the economy ahead of official macroeconomic data which is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators. It presents a more up-to-date picture of how the economy is reacting to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic which began more than two years ago.

The Google data is released with a lag. The latest is as of August 24. Traffic data is as of Monday morning 9am. All other data is as of Sunday, August 28.