Recovery tracker: Signs of increased activity as Covid-19 cases decline

Some indicators have begun to reverse earlier decline

The economy showed some signs of getting back on its feet amid fewer Covid-19 cases being reported.

The shortfall in power generation was lower than the previous week, and mobility too seemed to be on the rise. There are now under 200,000 Covid-19 cases reported daily according to government figures, compared to over 400,000 at the beginning of the month.

Workplace visits are now 53.6 per cent closer to pre-pandemic times, according to mobility data from search engine Google. It uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. It was around 48.6 per cent of pre-pandemic levels earlier in the month. Visits to other places also show some improvement (see chart 1).

Traffic has also stopped its decline in both Mumbai and New Delhi, according to global location technology firm TomTom International. While numbers are still significantly lower than in times before Covid-19, both cities improved over the previous week and moved closer to normalcy (see chart 2).

The amount of electricity generated in the country was lower than in 2019. But the gap is narrower than it was before. Power generation had taken a hit during the national lockdown in 2020. Many factories and offices had shut down entirely. Some shutdowns had also been announced during the latest wave. Electricity generation had fallen accordingly (see chart 3). The improvement comes even as more people appear to be heading back to work.  

Business Standard also tracks emissions of nitrogen dioxide. It comes from industrial activity and vehicles. Delhi’s emissions are half of what they were in 2019. The emissions in Mumbai, based on Bandra locality data, have moved up (see chart 4,5).

The Indian Railways saw a decline in activity during the 2020 national lockdown. This low base has helped numbers look better for this year. This base effect is wearing off as the month of May ends. The growth in quantity of goods carried is lower than in the previous week. This is also true of the amount of money that the railways earned from carrying these goods (see chart 6).

Business Standard tracks these weekly economic indicators to get a sense of the economy ahead of the release of official macroeconomic data. The government numbers are often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to get a sense of the fast-changing situation on the ground, as different countries went into lockdown to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Google data is released with a lag. The latest is as of May 26th. All other data is as of Sunday, May 30.