Recovery tracker: Spike in air passenger numbers, power generation up

Vehicle registrations were lower than the week before

There was a pick-up in the high frequency indicators of economic activity for the latest week.

There were more visits to transit stations. They include bus stops, metros and other transport hubs. Search engine Google uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. Workplace visits also rose, even as retail and recreation visits dipped (see chart 1).

Indian Railways registered higher growth in the quantity of goods it carried. It was up 9.3 per cent year on year, compared with 8.7 per cent YoY the previous week. The money it made from carrying the goods, called freight revenue, was up 14.96 per cent in the latest week, compared with 17.4 per cent previously (see chart 2).

More people caught flights, with the average daily number of air passengers moving to 340,000 on September 11, compared with 314,000 in the previous week. The number of flights rose to 2,590 from 2,553 in the same period (see chart 3).

Monday morning 9am traffic was higher in major metros. It came in at 28 per cent below 2019 levels in New Delhi on 12th September. This is an improvement over the 31 per cent gap in the previous week. Mumbai’s traffic congestion gap narrowed to 30 per cent over 2019 levels, compared to 43 per cent seen previously (see chart 4).

India generated 4,675 million units of electricity on average daily over the seven days ended September 12, based on reporting day data. This is marginally higher than the 4,654 million units generated in the previous week. The gap over 2019 has also widened to 21 per cent compared to 19.9 per cent previously (see chart 5).

Vehicle registrations dipped to 337,000 in the previous week, from 343,000 in the same period in 2019. This is the second week in a row in which 2022 numbers were lower than in 2019 (see chart 6).

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. It provides an up-to-date picture of economic 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 September 7th. Traffic data is as of Monday, 12th September. All other data is as of Sunday, September 11.