Recovery tracker: Surge in workplace attendance up despite rising cases

Power generation, vehicle registrations decline, recreation visits down

More employers visited their workplaces last week despite elevated levels of Covid-19 cases.

The total number of cases was 16,135 according to a government release on Monday, down 5.5 per cent from a week ago.

Workplace visits are now 22.3 per cent above what was seen in a baseline period for 2020 before Covid-19 took hold. This is higher than the 21 per cent rise seen a week ago, shows mobility data from search engine Google, which uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. However, retail & recreation and grocery & pharmacy visits were down during the same period (see chart 1).

Power generation was up 1.5 per cent from the previous week but generation remained low compared to its highs in June. The power producers in the country generated an average of 4,509 million units per day of electricity in the latest week. It was 4,445 million units in the previous week. Power generation remains higher than was seen in 2019 (see chart 2).

Vehicle registrations were lower than 2019 levels for the fourth week in a row. There were a total of 365782 vehicles registered in the latest week. This is 28.8 per cent lower than the 513,794 vehicles registered in the same period in 2019 (see chart 3).

Major cities saw a rise in traffic congestion as of Monday morning 9am, shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. New Delhi traffic was down 16 per cent in relation to 2019 levels for the latest week. It had been down 43 per cent previously. Mumbai traffic was also down only 16 per cent in the latest week, compared to the 44 per cent decline seen previously (see chart 4).

The seven-day moving average of airline flights and passengers declined last week. Averages were used where archival data was unavailable. Sunday data showed 2,623 domestic flights compared to 2,768 flights a week ago. The number of daily passengers declined to 320,000 from 359,000 a week ago. (see chart 5).

The Indian Railways showed a moderation in growth goods carried on its network last week. Freight loading was up 6.4 per cent year-on-year last week compared to 16.49 per cent growth in the previous week. The freight revenues that railways made from carrying these goods was up 23.7 per cent YoY, but lower than the 25.85 per cent YoY growth the previous week. (see chart 6).

Business Standard tracks these indicators as a way of getting a weekly picture of how the economy is doing. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally track similar indicators to get a more up-to-date picture of the effects of Covid-19 and restrictions imposed to control its spread. The Google data is released with a lag. The latest is as of Wednesday, 29th June. The traffic data is as of Monday, July June 4. All other data is as of Sunday, July 3.