Every Thursday, at IndiaPulse@ISB, we release new insights based on high-frequency data curated from reliable and recognized sources.

Our insights shed light on economic activity, jobs, health, and skills. We work with high-frequency indicators and show activities at the spatial granularity of the states and in some cases, intra-state.

IndiaPulse@ISB goes spatially granular and focusses attention on the state of Tamil Nadu. # InclusiveGrowth

This week we help MSME’s decide where to locate:

1. We show 3 types of industrial clusters and their locations
2. Clusters are labelled A, B, C depending upon their reliance on a specific infrastructure
3. Those incentivized by the TN state govt are classified as A; Those requiring healthcare facilities as B; And those whose supply chains predominantly depend upon the road and railways network, as C.
4. We also highlight geographical areas where the Tamil Nadu Government has extended incentives to MSMEs to boost up economic growth  ( http://www.indcom.tn.gov.in/).

We IndiaPulse@ISB are in the business of measuring what matters

This week we show:

1. What new sectors did the Union Cabinet extend the existing Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme to
2. Which sectors can be the new movers and shakers of the production economy
3. Where can you roll up your sleeves and get ready to manufacture, and
4. Where these future national champion companies are located and how many workers do these employ

• "Current" Economic Activity can be measured using electricity consumption data in near real-time. 
• Shows Economic Activity at 1km long Hexagon
• Coded by different industries, Agriculture, Services, Machinery, Wood
• Month by Month data from 2019 to 2020 shows seasonal patterns
• Indicates that compared to 2019, the activity after October in 2020 has not picked up fully

• All India: Compared to 2019 levels, Fertiliser sales have remained the same, while the transacted value of agricultural produce shows variations.
• Lockdown effect: Some states as Odissa have emerged largely as unaffected, while others as Maharashtra have seen a dip in the value of agricultural produce traded in mandis aggregated over the past year.
• Punjab: Mandi data in Punjab shows a steep dip at the end of 2020. Can it be due to the farmer’s strike?
• Missing inventories: Fertilizer sales are a good proxy for agricultural produce. While fertilizer sales pan India have largely remained the same, The value of traded agricultural produce in mandis has seen a substantial dip in 2020. To combat future disruptions in supply chains of perishable goods, data suggests an increased investment in storage facilities. 
• We now invite researchers to examine this data at the district level across the 2 years.

• Informal workers apply for MNREGA when they are not able to find jobs.
• There is a lag of one to two months between a downturn in economic activity and workers seeking MNREGA.
• Even though economic activity may have largely recovered by the end of 2020 after suffering a sharp downturn in April, informal jobs have probably not recovered enough back to 2019 levels.
• There is a large variation across states with some north-eastern states such as Mizoram with more than 15% of the population seeking MNREGA jobs all throughout the year.

• Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra have the greatest number of manufacturing jobs. Workers from other states migrate to these states for jobs.
• These three states also have the largest number of facilities for acquiring skills. Also Kerala, which does not have lot of manufacturing jobs.
• The future jobs will be located around the industrial corridors around the golden quadrilateral. A lot of skilling centers need to be developed around these. Currently, there are scarce at these locations. 
• The eastern coast corridor, with ports in AP and Tamil Nadu could become the export centers for east Asian countries.

This week, we show:

- Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab recovered the fastest, by June.

- Most states recovered by September

- Some North-eastern states are still struggling

This week, we show:

- Growth in GST collections, month by month from, 2019 to 2020, for every state.

- Main findings:

        ○ GST collections began to weaken in February 2020.

        ○ April 2020 was the worst month across all states.

        ○ Recovery began by July 2020.

        ○ By October 2020, all states appear to have recovered.

        ○ By December 2020, data indicates that GST recovery was faltering in some states.