Workplace visits hit a record high, Omicron concerns notwithstanding

Power generation, other indicators also show positive trend

The number of people going to work has hit the highest since early 2020, despite rising cases of the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron.

Workplace visits tracked by search engine Google showed a 7.6 per cent increase over a baseline period before Covid-19 took hold in the early part of 2020. This is the highest reading for India since Google began to make mobility data available. It collates the information based on anonymised location data. It tracks movement during the pandemic to various categories of places across countries. Retail and recreation visits were also higher than seen in early 2020 though lower than the post-Covid peak of 3.6 per cent seen in November 2021.

Weekly power generation was at its highest since the middle of October this year. The power utilities across the country generated 3,797 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ended December 26, 2021, based on reporting day data, up 3.4 per cent from 3,673 MUs in the previous week. The power generation last week was 4 per cent higher than in the corresponding week in 2020 and 8.8 per cent higher than generation in the corresponding week in 2019 based on reporting day numbers.

Business Standard also tracks emissions of nitrogen dioxide. It comes from industrial activity and vehicles. Higher levels can indicate more economic activity and vice-versa. Delhi emissions were up 45.9 per cent, while Mumbai emissions remained limited.

New Delhi traffic congestion moved closer to 2019 levels. It was 17 per cent below 2019 for the latest week compared to the previous week’s 20 per cent gap. Mumbai traffic congestion was 31 per cent below 2019. This is the same as the previous week.

The Indian Railways carried 8.7 per cent more goods by quantity than in the same period last year. Growth had been 8.8 per cent in the previous week. The Railways earned 11.2 per cent more money for carrying these goods than in 2020. Earnings growth had been 9.6 per cent in the previous week.

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way of getting a current picture of the economy. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to get a sense of the on-ground economic effects of government restrictions to control the Covid-19 pandemic. Google releases its data with a lag. The latest is as of December 23. All other data is for the week ending Sunday, December 26. Countries globally have stepped up restrictions to deal with the Omicron variant.