Businesses are slowly returning to normalcy as Nomura India Business Resumption Index (NIBRI) picked up sharply to reach a post-lockdown high of 82.2 for the week ending October 18, as opposed to its lowest level of 45.3 recorded in the week ending May 3.
In the initial months of lockdown, many companies resorted to reducing their workforce to cut costs. As a result, unemployment rate spiked to 23.5 per cent in April 2020. But it has fallen to 6.98 per cent in October, signalling some normalisation in the economy.
GST collection, which is a major source of income for the government, has also shown a drastic recovery. In October, after rising 10.2 per cent YoY, GST collection crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark for the first time since February 2020.
With companies raising output to the greatest extent in 13 years amid robust sales growth, manufacturing sector conditions in India continued to improve in the month of October 2020.
Passenger cars and two-wheeler sales have shown 6.4 per cent and 11.3 per cent rise, respectively in September 2020 as compared with the year-ago period, pointing to a recovery in the auto sales numbers which were adversely hit during the April-June quarter.
After a sudden lack in demand in the month of April, power consumption is back on the growth path, driven mainly by buoyancy in industrial and commercial activities. In September 2020, power consumption levels surpassed those in the corresponding month last year, and have been growing since then.