Recovery tracker: Higher workplace attendance, railway freight numbers

Vehicle registrations, aviation numbers are worse than before

More people went to work amid a moderation in the growth of Covid-19 cases.

There were 16,866 cases recorded in the previous 24 hours, according to a government update on Monday. There were 16,935 cases recorded on the same day last week.

Workplace visits rose during the week, shows mobility data from search engine Google. It uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. Workplace visits were 25 per cent higher than a baseline period in January and February 2020 before the pandemic took hold.

The Indian Railways recorded higher growth in the quantity of goods it carried. It was 10.58 per cent higher year-on-year for the latest week, while it had only grown 4.91 per cent in the previous week. The money it made from carrying these goods, called freight revenue, grew 21.73 per cent; compared to 16.49 per cent in the previous week.

Power generation in the country continued to moderate and it was up 0.5 per cent from the previous week but the gap over 2019 levels declined. The power producers in the country generated 4,297 million units of electricity per day on average in the latest week. It was 4,276 million units per day in the previous week. In comparison, power generation was 3,975 MU per day during the corresponding week in 2019.

Traffic congestion in major cities were down by around a third compared to 2019. Monday morning 9 a.m. traffic congestion was down 31 per cent in New Delhi, according to data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It was down 36 per cent in Mumbai.
 

Vehicle registrations were down 17.1 per cent compared to 2019. Indians registered around 334,000 vehicles during the latest week compared to over 402,000 in the same period for 2019.
 

There were fewer people taking flights. For example, there were 311,000 passengers on Sunday, July 24. This is lower than the 316,000 passengers seen on the previous Sunday. The number of flights fell to 2,515 compared to 2,560 previously. 
 

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. It helps understand the immediate, on-ground economic effects of steps taken to control the Covid-19 pandemic. The traffic data is as of July 25, Monday morning 9 a.July 20. All other data is as of Sunday, July 24.