Weekly economic indicators: Power generation falls 3% below 2019 level

Freight growth weakens, traffic also falls in key cities

The economy may be facing trouble sustaining its momentum after the festive season with several key indicators of economic activity showing signs of losing steam.

Business Standard tracks indicators including the quantity of goods that the Indian Railways carries, traffic congestion in major cities, pollution levels and mobility that search engine Google tracks using anonymised location data. Analysts globally have been tracking similar parameters to get a current view of the economy ahead of official data which is often released with a lag. The weekly indicators provide a sense of the fast-changing situation on the ground amid lockdowns to control the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of them are trending lower than in previous weeks.  

Electricity generation was lower in the latest week than it had been in the same period last year. This is the first time that power generation has fallen below the 2019 level since early September. The seven-day rolling average power generation number is around three per cent lower than last year’s level for November 22nd (see chart 1).

 

Indian Railways’ data shows lower growth over 2019 than was seen in the previous week. The quantity of goods carried was up five per cent for the seven days ending Saturday 21st November. It was up over 10 per cent around the previous weekend. The growth in earnings from the goods carried dropped from 4.4 per cent over 2019 to 0.3 per cent (see chart 2).

 

Traffic congestion data from global location technology firm TomTom International showed a decline for the second week in a row. It was down 40 per cent in Mumbai from 2019 for the week ending Sunday. New Delhi numbers showed a 39 per cent decline in the same period (see chart 3).

 

Business Standard also tracks nitrogen dioxide emissions. They are released due to industrial activity and from vehicles.  Delhi’s emissions were lower than 2019 for the week ending Sunday. It had been around a quarter more than 2019 levels in the previous week (See chart 3). Mumbai emissions continued to be muted shows Bandra locality data (see chart 4,5).

 

Search engine Google’s data is released with a lag. The latest is as of November 17. It shows a decline in visits to retail and recreation spots compared to the period before Diwali. Workplace visits also show a decline. Visits to transit stations were up ahead of Diwali. They rose to levels last seen before the lockdown, before falling again after the Diwali weekend (see chart 6).