Recovery tracker: Power generation up by 7%, workplace visits rise

Freight gains have trailed in the latest week

Some proxies for economic activity showed more signs of resilience than others amid rising Covid-19 cases.

Power generation and mobility data showed signs of gains, even as the growth in goods carried by the Indian railways was lower than the previous week. Business Standard tracks these and others indicators such as pollution and traffic congestion data to get a sense of the economic situation on the ground. Analysts globally have been tracking similar numbers amid the pandemic.  Official macroeconomic data often comes out with a lag. High frequency indicators give an idea of how the economy might be doing amid shutdowns to control the pandemic. India has been recording over 18,000 cases in recent days . It had managed to bring down cases to levels below 10,000 on multiple occasions earlier in 2021.

India generated nearly 12 per cent more electricity than the previous year for the seven days ending Sunday 7 March. It was 14.6 per cent higher than in 2019 (see chart 1).  

Mumbai’s emissions of nitrogen dioxide were 12 per cent lower than in 2019 showed Bandra locality data as of Sunday 7th March. Nitrogen dioxide comes from industrial activity and vehicles. Delhi’s emissions were nearly 10 per cent higher than in 2019. Emissions for 2020 showed signs of pressure in March. The lockdown to control the pandemic began towards the end of the month. (see chart 2,3).  

Search engine Google tracks what kind of places people are going to during the pandemic using location data. Workplace visits were at their highest since January. The data appears with a lag. The latest is as of 2nd March. Essentials shopping through grocery and pharmacy visits continued to show gains over pre-pandemic times (see chart 4).  Workplace visits may have varied across regions going by traffic numbers.

Traffic congestion dropped in New Delhi, shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. Monday morning traffic on 8th March 9am fell to 60 per cent of 2019 levels from 63 per cent in the previous week. Mumbai’s traffic congestion at the same time rose from 50 per cent to 52 per cent of 2019 levels (see chart 5).

The Indian Railways data is available in comparison to 2020. It shows a five per cent year-on-year gain in the quantity of goods carried for the seven days ending Sunday, 7th March. Earnings from these goods is also up by a similar amount. This is lower than the double-digit gains seen in the previous week (see chart 6).