Dev 360 | Tackling extreme heat: Make it bigger priority | Patralekha Chatterjee

It is no secret that India is highly vulnerable to climate change and weather extremes. The impact of extreme heat on India, a country where millions work outdoors, has been studied by numerous researchers, activists, academics, and journalists. Soaring temperatures can potentially cost India 5.8 per cent of working hours in 2030, a productivity loss equivalent to 34 million full-time jobs, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) pointed out in 2019. Excessive heat stress not only affects farmers, construction workers, auto drivers, delivery boys and ordinary people who cannot corral themselves in air-conditioned homes, offices and cars, it also affects crops, which can lead to lower production and higher prices. Heat waves push up demand for irrigation, strain the power sector and more.

Astonishingly, extreme heat is not yet a political issue in India. Long-term measures that need to be taken to counter it do not feature in poll speeches or mainstream public discourse.

Temperatures are soaring in Maharashtra while it remains immersed in the political heat generated by stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra. Meanwhile, on March 24, Koregaon Park in Pune recorded a scorching 40.9°C, making it the hottest city in Maharashtra. Blistering heat is not just a Maharashtra story; it is sweeping vast swathes of the country. February 2025 was the hottest February in India in the last 125 years, since record-keeping began in 1901. Night temperatures are also shooting up.

The Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority has forecast heatwave conditions for 108 mandals (local administrative units) across the state. The India Meteorological Department (IMD), Hyderabad, has predicted a 2-3°C rise in maximum temperatures also across Telangana over the next few days. A parliamentary committee just recommended a host of measures, including a national Heat Action Plan (HAP) to mitigate the heatwave that ordinary Indians are likely to face this summer and beyond.

So how prepared is India for a warming world?

A new report titled “Is India Ready for a Warming World? How Heat Resilience Measures Are Being Implemented for 11% of India’s Urban Population in Some of Its Most At-Risk Cities”, by Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC), a Delhi-based research organisation, analyses India’s preparedness for heat extremes projected under +1.5C of warming by assessing the implementation of long-term heat risk-reduction measures in nine cities. The authors say they chose to focus on the +1.5°C scenario because this represents the new normal that heat action policy must acknowledge for the coming decades.

The cities covered by the study -- Bengaluru, Faridabad, Gwalior, Kota, Ludhiana, Meerut, Mumbai, New Delhi and Surat -- represent a diversity of institutional and economic contexts and over 11 per cent of India’s urban population (Census of India, 2011). Eighty-eight government officials working in a range of departments -- including health, disaster management, labour, planning, and horticulture -- were interviewed. The authors (Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti, Alexandra Kassinis, Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Escandita Tewari and Navroz K Dubash) offer critical insights.

“All cities report short-term emergency measures: These include actions like access to drinking water, changing work schedules, and boosting hospital capacity before or during a heat wave…,” says the SFC report. These measures meant to kick in just before, and during a heat wave, have saved lives and brought relief. Undoubtedly, India is in a better position than what it was a few decades ago. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation pioneered India’s first Heat Action Plan (HAP) in 2013 after a lethal heat wave in the city in 2010 killed over 1,300 people. Since then, 23 heatwave-prone states and Union territories as well as several Indian cities have come with HAPs.

What is missing, as the SFC report makes clear, are key long-term measures such as insurance for lost working hours, which is crucial as heat chips away at productivity; electricity grid retrofits that can meet the rising electricity demand from cooling; and cooling access for the most vulnerable. Many of the reported long-term actions are also poorly targeted. Long-term solutions were both less common and less likely to be effective because they were not targeted at heat vulnerable populations, the authors say. One example -- trees planted were not aligned with heat vulnerability assessments in eight of the nine cities. Worryingly, planting trees in densely-populated, informal settlements where land is scarce has its own challenges.

How prepared is India’s political class for the long-term impacts of soaring temperatures?

“I do not think it has yet become a political issue in the state,” says Sameet Panda, an independent researcher who works mostly in Odisha. Boudh in Odisha reached a scalding 43.6°C on March 16, making it the hottest place in India for the second consecutive day.

But as Mr Panda put it, most people do not quite understand what the state government can do to address extreme heat in contrast to natural disasters, where they see a clear role for the state, at least in rescue and rehabilitation. “I think some politicians are aware, but it is yet to become a people’s issue. Slums and working-class areas need to have public cooling systems but the working class is not able to articulate the problems it faces. Life in homes with asbestos roofs will become more and more difficult.”

Addressing extreme heat requires long-term investment in climate adaptation, infrastructure, such as better cooling systems, heat-resistant building materials, or changes in agricultural practices, and public health initiatives. These are complex issues that require cross-party consensus and coordinated action across multiple levels of government. Unfortunately, the political climate in India often tends to focus on short-term gains, which makes tackling systemic challenges like climate change or extreme heat more difficult. Add to that India’s polarised political milieu, which makes forging such a consensus more challenging as well as the lack of a significant push from voters demanding long-term measures to deal with extreme heat.

Playing the ostrich, however, will be very costly. The SFC report’s recommendations include creating a targeted capacity-building programme for HAP implementation across India’s most heat-vulnerable cities, creating permanent and funded specialist positions in the most climate-vulnerable districts, with training for long-term risk mitigation. A key recommendation is creation of a highly-targeted active cooling programme. Rapidly rising temperatures and the gap in long-term heat resilience strongly suggest that at-risk urban populations will turn to air conditioning to protect their lives and livelihoods. “State and national governments should deploy a subsidy or large-scale purchase programme that allows these families to buy energy-efficient ACs. They must be targeted at portions of Indian cities with the highest heat risk, determined by the vulnerability assessment of its HAP,” says the report.

Policymakers must pay attention.