Recovery tracker: Rise in no of flyers, gap on auto registrations narrows

Mobility indicators show more people at transit spots like bus and train stations

High-frequency indicators seemed to point towards slightly more bustle during the latest week.

Around 10,000 more people caught a flight every day on average in the latest week, compared to the previous one. There has been a rising trend in the number of air passengers. There were over 400,000 air passengers on Sunday, May 15 alone. The total number for the week was around 2.6 million.

There was also more activity around transit areas like bus stops and train stations, according to data from search engine Google. It collates mobility numbers for various categories of places using anonymized location data. The last two days for which data was available showed the highest transit area visits since records became available.

Power generation stayed high but did not rise further despite the heat wave and record high temperatures in north and north-west India. Power utilities across the country generated 4,600 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ended May 15, up 14.8 per cent from 4,009 MUs generated during the corresponding week in CY19. The generation was up 1.25 per cent higher on week-on-week basis.

Indians registered a total of 384,594 vehicles in the latest week. This is 5.2 per cent lower than the corresponding week in 2019 before Covid-19 struck India. But the gap is smaller than the previous week when registrations were down 18.5 per cent.

Traffic congestion was down in both Mumbai and New Delhi on Monday morning at 9 a.m., shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It was 56 per cent lower than 2019 in New Delhi, compared to the 39 per cent lower figure seen in the previous week. This could be on account of Buddha Purnima which is a government holiday.  Mumbai’s traffic congestion was down 63 per cent compared to a 48 per cent decline previously.

Railway numbers continued to hold steady. The year-on-year growth in the quantity of goods that the Indian Railways carried was 14.81 per cent for the latest week compared to 14.87 per cent seen previously. The growth in the money that the Indian Railways made from carrying these goods, called freight revenue, was 20.57 per cent compared to 23.06 per cent in the previous week.

Business Standard tracks these indicators to get a weekly picture of how the economy is doing. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to keep track of the situation on the ground as governments impose restrictions to control the Covid-19 pandemic. The traffic update is as of 16th May, Google data is from 11th May. All other information is as of Sunday, May 15.