More people are going to work this year

Delhi emissions up; rail numbers trend down

As the number of reported Covid19 cases in India continues to decline, more people are going to their workplaces in 2021.

Mobility data shows that office visits were nearly 88 per cent of what was seen during pre-covid times. The number of daily Covid19 cases has fallen over 80 per cent from the September 2020 peak of nearly 100,000 new cases a day and is currently around 15,000 cases a day, shows pandemic tracker covid19india.org.

Business Standard also tracks pollution levels, goods carried by the Indian Railways, the amount of power generated across the country and traffic congestion in key cities. These highfrequency indicators provide a picture of economic activity ahead of official data. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to get a sense of the fastchanging situation on the ground.

Search engine Google uses anonymised location data to track mobility. It shows that workplace visits had fallen to around 34 per cent of normal times at the height of the lockdown. These are now at 87.9 per cent of normal times. Google releases the data with a lag. The latest is as of January 12 (see chart 1).

With offices and factories shut,

power generation had fallen by nearly 30 per cent during the lockdown. It has since climbed back to normal levels. Power generated was 3.8 per cent higher than in the same period last year for the seven days ending Sunday, January 17. The gains were under three per cent for the previous week (see chart 2).

Businessstandard also tracks nitrogen dioxide emissions, a pollutant that comes from industrial activity and vehicles. The levels of the pollutant in Delhi were around 14 per cent higher than the same period last year for the week ending January 17. They were down by around 20 per cent in the previous week. Mumbai’s emissions, based on Bandra locality data, are down 97 per cent (see chart 3, 4).

Traffic congestion is at levels similar to the previous week. Congestion measured at 9 am on Monday (January 18) was 48 per cent lower than 2019 in New Delhi, shows data from global location technology firm Tomtom International. It was 42 per cent lower in Mumbai (see chart 5).

The Indian Railways’ year-onyear gains in quantity of goods carried dropped from 11.1 per cent in the previous week to 6.9 per cent for the week ending January 17. Earnings from the goods carried dropped from 5.6 per cent to 5.2 per cent.