Recovery tracker: Traffic up, workplace visits peak since national lockdown

Power generation and freight growth slow down

Indian workplace visits have touched their highest point since the first national lockdown was imposed in March 2020.

They are now at over 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels, shows mobility data from search engine giant Google. It uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. The data is released with a lag. The latest is as of September 7th. It also showed an increase in retail and recreation visits. Grocery and pharmacy visits also showed an increase over the previous week.

Traffic congestion has increased for the week ending Sunday 12th September when compared to the previous week. It is now at over 80 per cent of what is seen during normal times in major cities, shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It is at 81 per cent of normal in Mumbai (77 per cent in the previous week). New Delhi traffic is at 88 per cent of normal compared to 83 per cent in the previous week.

Business Standard also tracks emissions of nitrogen dioxide. It comes from industrial activity and vehicles. An increase can point to more factories at work and vehicles on the road. Levels rose marginally for Delhi in the latest week, but remains more than a quarter below what was seen in the same period in 2019. Mumbai emissions are also down similarly, and have actually worsened over the previous week.

The Indian Railways and power generation have shown signs of slowdown.

The quantity of goods that the railways carried is 5.8 per cent higher than the same period last year. Growth was higher (11.3 per cent) in the previous week. The freight revenue numbers also slowed from a growth of 15.4 per cent to 12 per cent for the latest week.

Power demand in the country declined for the third consecutive week and is now down 12-13 per cent from annual highs of around 4500 million units per day average reached in the middle of August. Around 4000 million units of electricity was generated per day on average during the week. Power generation growth last week was in single-digit territory.

Business Standard tracks these weekly economic indicators to get a current sense of how the pandemic is affecting the economy. This gives an idea of the economic recovery ahead of official macroeconomic data which is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators as different countries went into lockdown to control Covid-19. All data is as of Sunday, 12th September, except Google which is as of September 7.