Economic activity in India is picking up after a weeks-long nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus, according to at least four weekly indicators tracked by Business Standard.
Freight traffic has gone up; Google location data shows more people are stepping out of their homes and internet speeds are similar to before the lockdown. Business Standard tracks such indicators, ahead of more comprehensive data which is often released with a lag.
Analysts began to track similar numbers after the lockdown in China, where the coronavirus outbreak is believed to have emerged from. Usual macroeconomic indicators, like trade and gross domestic product numbers, are often released after a gap and even then available only monthly or quarterly. The use of higher frequency indicators, like internet speed, has gained traction as a means of assessing the fast-changing situation on the ground.
Business Standard tracked six indicators: Traffic, railway freight, pollution and power are all for the previous week; Google location data and internet download speed numbers appear after a few days.
Railway freight traffic shows a 4.4 per cent increase in the quantity of goods transported. It had been significantly lower than last year’s numbers previously. Freight earnings are still down 8.2 per cent (see chart 1).
Google anonymously tracks location data for analysis, slotting places by category like grocery, workplace, and residential. The data for India shows that the number of workplace visits have gone up. The decline from normal is only 38.7 per cent, significantly lower than the 65.9 per cent fall seen during the peak of the lockdown. Business Standard looked at a seven-day rolling average for the analysis. The latest numbers are for May 29. Other than workplace visits, grocery and pharmacy numbers also showed a rise (see chart 2).
This ties-in with data on internet loads.
Global internet tracker Ookla provides data on download speeds. These tend to be slower when more people are working from home. Video conferencing becomes more common, and consumption of entertainment online also goes up during a lockdown. The dip in internet speeds because of the lockdown now seems to be reversing. Median mobile download speeds are up 2.9 per cent compared to before the lockdown, while median fixed download speeds are down only 3.4 per cent (See chart 3).
Traffic data shows more vehicles on the road. An average of Mumbai and New Delhi traffic numbers shows an uptick in congestion, though still far from normal. The data is from TomTom International, which tracks traffic across major global cities. Like previous weeks, New Delhi shows more of a recovery than Mumbai (see chart 4).
Two indicators show a less optimistic picture: power generation and emission of nitrogen dioxide.
Power generation had shown signs of going back to the levels before Covid-19. This trend has reversed recently. The gap has narrowed from less than ten per cent last week to more than 20 per cent for the week ending Friday (see chart 5).
Nitrogen dioxide is an emission from industrial activity and vehicles. This dropped during the week ending Friday in both Mumbai and Delhi (see chart 6).