Recovery tracker: Mobility dips, power generation falls under second wave

Retail and recreation visits are at their lowest in nearly a year

People are staying off the roads, using less electricity and making fewer visits to buy goods or enjoy recreational activities.

The second wave has forced retail and recreation visits down to June 2020 levels. Visits had been going up in June last year as the country came out of the lockdown. The trend is downward this time. Search engine Google tracks visits based on location data (see chart 1).

 

Power generation shows a similar declining trend. There was a sharp dip in power generation in the first week of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and then it began to rise gradually from end of March all through to September as more and more industries were allowed to operate.

In contrast, this year, the power generation peaked in the first week of April just before Maharashtra announced lockdown and it continues to trend down since then. More states have announced a lockdown to slow down the spread of the second wave which may cause the dip in power consumption to be more protracted and longer-lasting in 2021 than last year (see chart 2).

India recorded 280,000 cases as of Sunday, shows data from tracker covid19india.org.  

 

Traffic congestion has fallen in New Delhi, shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It is down 88 per cent compared to Mumbai’s 81 per cent decline (see chart 3). Both cities imposed restrictions to control rising cases. Delhi was worse affected in recent times. Both cities’ traffic congestion is down over 80 per cent for the last three weeks.

 

There is also a difference in relative levels of nitrogen dioxide in the two cities. The pollutant comes from industrial activity and vehicles. Mumbai’s emissions are rising based on Bandra locality data. Delhi emissions are still less than half of the levels seen in 2019 (see chart 4,5).

 

The Indian Railways were hit in last year’s lockdown. This has created a favourable base for current year numbers. The quantity of goods carried is up 42.6 per cent for the seven days ending May 16, compared to the same period last year. Freight earnings are up 59.3 per cent (see chart 6).

 

Business Standard tracks these indicators weekly. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. The weekly indicators provide a sense of how the economy is doing ahead of such data. Analysts globally have been using the same as different countries went into lockdown to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

Google releases its mobility data with a lag. The latest is as of May 12th. All other data is as of May 16.