Recovery tracker: Workplace visits continue to rise as Covid-19 cases drop

Power generation trends higher, airlines see more passengers

More people are going to work than before as the economy opens up after the third wave of the pandemic.

Workplace visits are now nearly a fifth (19.4 per cent) higher than they were before the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic, according to mobility data from search engine Google. Retail and recreation visits were also higher than at any period since records are available.
 

The number of passengers on airlines continued to rise. There were a total of 18,050 domestic flights during the latest week. They carried 2.4 million passengers.
 

Power generation grew further last week along with a rise in temperatures across the country. The power utilities across the country generated 4,218 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ended March 13 (based on reporting day data), up 4 per cent year-on-year from 4132 MUs during the corresponding week in FY21. The generation was however up 24.3 per cent over the corresponding week in FY20 and 2.1 per cent higher on a week-on-week basis .

The number of vehicles registered saw a wider gap over the pre-pandemic year of 2019 in the latest week, compared to the previous one. The gap widened from 15.6 per cent to 20.8 per cent.

There were a total of 348,973 vehicles registered during the week.

The Indian Railways saw a 7.83 per cent growth in the quantity of goods it carried during the latest week. Growth was 7.3 per cent in the previous week.

The growth in the amount of money it earned from carrying these goods was 9.87 per cent compared to 12.1 per cent previously.

Monday morning 9am traffic congestion in the financial capital showed signs of an uptick, according to data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It was 43 per cent below normal compared to 46 per cent previously. New Delhi traffic was 34 per cent below normal in the latest week compared to 32 per cent below normal in the previous one .

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way to get a weekly sense of how the economy is moving. Official macroeconomic data is often released with an interval of three months. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators. It gives a sense of the fast-changing situation on the ground amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The traffic data is as of Monday, 14th March while Google’s data is as of March 8th. All other data is as of Sunday 13th March.