Festive boost to retail visits

Traffic has increased in Mumbai and New Delhi

Retail and recreation spots saw higher footfall amid Eid-ul-fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramzan, and Akshaya Tritiya, which is considered auspicious for the purchase of gold and jewellery.

Mobility data from search engine Google shows that retail and recreation visits are 12.4 per cent higher than they were in the early part of 2020 before the pandemic took hold. The gains were less than 10 per cent towards the end of April. There was also an increase in shopping in terms of grocery and pharmacy visits (see chart 1).

The number of flights and airline passengers seemed to show a rising trend, especially towards the end of the week (see chart 2).

There was more traffic on the roads of India’s financial capital, Mumbai. Monday 9am traffic congestion was still 48 per cent below 2019 levels, according to global location technology firm Tomtom International. New Delhi traffic was down 39 per cent. Both mark an increase over the previous week (see chart 3).

The Indian Railways continued to show steady growth in the quantity of goods it carried. It was up 14.87 per cent for the latest week, compared to 15.19 per cent previously. The amount of money it made from carrying these goods, called freight revenue, grew at 23.06 per cent over the same period last year, similar to the previous week (see chart 4).

Power utilities generated 4,543 million units of electricity on average per day during the week ending May 8. This is 17 per cent higher than the 3,882 million units generated per day during the corresponding week in 2019. Power generation was down 1.8 per cent as against the previous week.

There was a drop in vehicle registrations. It was down 18.5 per cent for the latest week, compared to the same period in 2019. The previous week had only seen a 2.6 per cent decline, while the week before had seen a 9.1 per cent increase. Indians registered a total of 353,731 vehicles during the week. The same period in 2019 had seen around 434,000 registrations (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 have been tracking similar indicators to understand the situation on the ground as governments take steps to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

The traffic data is for Monday 9am. Google releases its mobility data with a lag. The latest is as of May 4. All other data is as of Sunday, May 8.