More people fly in India, recreation visits dip as Covid-19 cases slow down

Trains carried more goods and power generation increased, weekly data shows.

Weekly indicators of economic activity in India retained their gains amid daily new Covid-19 cases plateauing in the country.

There were 2,022 new cases detected in the last 24 hours, according to a government update on Monday. This is similar to levels seen in the last few weeks.

An average of more than 10,000 additional domestic passengers took flights daily last week compared to the week before. The average number of daily passengers for the latest week was around 379,000. The average daily flights numbered 2,789.

The Indian Railways showed higher growth in the quantity of goods it carried. It was up 15.36 per cent year-on-year for the latest week compared to the 14.81 per cent growth seen in the previous week. The amount of money it made from carrying these goods, called freight revenue, was up 24.94 per cent compared to 20.57 per cent in the previous week.

Power utilities across the country generated 4514 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ended May 22, up 12.6 per cent from 4008 MUs generated during the corresponding week in calendar year 2019. The generation was however, down 1.9 per cent on a week-on-week.

There was more traffic congestion in Mumbai and New Delhi on Monday morning at 9am. New Delhi traffic congestion was only 27 per cent below 2019 levels, according to data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It had been 56 per cent down in the previous week. Mumbai’s traffic congestion was 48 per cent below 2019 levels. It was 63 per cent down previously.

Vehicle registrations were lower than before. It was down 6.5 per cent during the latest week, compared to the previous week’s 5.2 per cent decline. Indians registered a total of 380,394 vehicles during the week.

There was a fall in the growth of retail and recreation visits. Growth was at 9 per cent in the latest week, showed mobility data from search engine Google. It uses anonymized location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. Retail and recreation visit growth was at 11.9 per cent previously. The figure is compared to a period in early 2020 before the pandemic took hold.

'Business Standard' tracks these indicators as a way of getting a weekly picture of the economy. Official macroeconomic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to understand how government measures to control the pandemic are affecting the economy. The Google data is released with a lag. The latest is as of 18th May. The traffic data is as of Monday morning 9am on 23rd May. All other data is as of Sunday, May 22.