🔥 Context & Background

• Unusual Heatwave Onset: In March 2024, India witnessed heatwaves 20 days earlier than 2015 and earlier than any year since 2014.
  
  
• Warming Trend: The past decade has seen a rising trend in both the number and severity of heatwaves.
  
  
• Example: December 2022 had the hottest December night in Indian recorded history.
  
  
• Cause: Climate change is a major factor, with higher humidity and wind speed worsening heat stress.
  
  

🌡️ Impact of Heatwaves

1. Health Impact

• Causes heat stress, heat stroke, and multi-organ failure, possibly leading to death.
  
  
• Particularly dangerous for vulnerable groups: children, elderly, people with pre-existing conditions.
  
  

2. Socio-Economic Impact

• Workers and Livelihoods: Harder for workers to operate in extreme temperatures (farmers, laborers, livestock handlers).
  
  
• Sectoral Impact:
  
  
  • Agriculture: affects crop and livestock productivity.
    
    
  • Construction: higher heat stress lowers efficiency.
    
    
• Productivity loss leads to reduced personal income and GDP growth.
  
  

🧩 Gaps in Current Response

• India has over 130 Heat Action Plans (HAPs), but implementation and coordination are weak.
  
  
• HAPs vary in quality across regions.
  
  
• Lack of financial resources, institutional accountability, and community engagement.
  
  

🧠 Key Components of Effective Heat Action Plans (HAPs)

1. Early Warning Systems
   
   
2. Public Awareness Campaigns
   
   
3. Cooling Infrastructure (e.g., shaded areas, hydration stations)
   
   
4. Healthcare System Preparedness
   
   
5. Targeted Protection for Vulnerable Populations
   
   

🛠️ Short-term Solutions

1. Issue local heatwave alerts with granular details.
   
   
2. Create shaded community shelters and distribute clean water.
   
   
3. Activate local disaster and healthcare teams.
   
   
4. Cool roofs and reflective paints to reduce indoor heat.
   
   
5. Localised planning: Adapt HAPs to suit urban slums, rural areas, and different socioeconomic groups.
   
   

🏗️ Long-term Structural Solutions

1. Urban Planning Reforms:
   
   

• Increase tree cover and green spaces.
  
  
• Promote cool roof technologies and sustainable building materials.
  
  

1. Institutional Reforms:
   
   

• Integrate heat risk into health and climate policy.
  
  
• Improve coordination between departments.
  
  

1. Climate Resilient Infrastructure:
   
   

• Heat-resilient roads, railways, housing.
  
  
• Focus on poor and marginal communities.
  
  

1. Investment in R&D:
   
   

• Develop and scale heat mitigation innovations.
  
  
• Apply learnings from global success stories (e.g., France and Europe’s post-2003 heatwave planning).
  
  

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Equity and Justice Lens

• Heatwaves disproportionately impact:
  
  
  • The poor
    
    
  • Marginalised groups
    
    
  • Women
    
    
  • Informal sector workers
    
    
• HAPs must integrate social equity, affordability, and accessibility in solutions.
  
  

🧾 Recommendations & Way Forward

• Build community-based, localised heat preparedness systems.
  
  
• Prioritise data-backed, science-informed planning.
  
  
• Mandate and monitor HAP implementation in every district.
• Ensure that policy interventions are proactive, not reactive.