As India's Covid-19 cases inch up, recreation and shopping visits show dip

Workplace visits increased and power generation continues to inch up, marking economic recovery

There was a drop in mobility last week amid a rise in Covid-19 cases across the country, multiple indicators show.

There were 3,157 cases across the country in the previous 24 hours, according to a government statement on Monday. There were fewer than 1,000 cases in the second week of April.

People made fewer retail and recreation visits; shows mobility statistics from search engine Google. It uses anonymized location data to see how people are moving during the pandemic. It tracks visits to various categories of places including parks and transit stations. All saw a decline compared to the previous week, except for workplace visits. Workplace visits rose during this time.

There was a dip in the seven-day moving average of the number of people taking domestic flights. It was down to around 3,56,000 for the week ending Sunday; compared to 3,60,000 for the previous week.

Indians registered a marginally lower number of vehicles. The total number (4,09,260) was 2.6 per cent lower than the same period in 2019. Last week had seen a slightly higher number of vehicles registered which was a 9.1 per cent increase over the same period in 2019.

Monday morning 9am traffic congestion was 53 per cent lower than in 2019. It was slightly higher in New Delhi.

Power generation continues to inch-up amid rising temperatures across the country. Power utilities generated 4,628 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ending May 1. This is 16.4 per cent higher than the 3,975 million units generated per day during the corresponding week in 2019. Power generation was up 2.1 per cent compared to the previous week.

The Indian Railways registered higher growth in goods carried. The quantity was 15.19 per cent higher than the same period last year for the latest week, compared to 7.44 per cent previously. Coal and coke was the commodity with the highest tonnage. The railways made 23.85 per cent more money in freight revenue from carrying goods than in the same period last year, compared to 17.18 per cent growth in the previous week.

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way of getting a weekly picture of the economy. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators as a way of understanding the on-ground effects of measures to contain the pandemic. The traffic data is for Monday 2nd May. Google data is released with a lag, it is as of 27th April. All other data is as of Sunday 1st May.