Please protect India’s laborers from the heat.

Climate Change and Heatwaves in India

• India’s cities are becoming the epicenter of a growing crisis due to climate change.

• Urban informal workers are bearing the brunt of the heatwaves, potentially causing a projected 4.5% loss to India’s GDP.

• Despite their contribution, essential roles, and sheer numbers, they are consistently excluded from the planning and implementation of urban heat response strategies.

Challenges in Current Heat Action Plans

• Many Indian cities have Heat Action Plans (HAPs) guided by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

• Most HAPs remain perfunctory, underfunded, and poorly coordinated.

• Informal workers are largely invisible in HAPs, and they are treated as temporary disasters instead of the symptoms of a deeper climate crisis.

• State-level HAPs lack protocols for occupational safety, hydration, cooling spaces, shade provision, or compensation for lost work.

• City-level plans take a generalised public health and awareness approach, neglecting livelihood impacts.

• HAPs in India suffer from fragmented governance and institutional silos.

Towards a Worker-Centric Response

• The NDMA’s 2019 Heat Guidelines must be updated to explicitly include informal workers.

• Worker participation in the creation of city and State HAPs is mandated.

• Informal workers deserve the right to shade, rest, and cooling.

• Innovative financing and health insurance expansion should be included in action plans.

• Heat resilience and worker safety should be embedded into city design and governance.

• An inter-ministerial task force on climate and work should be established at the national level.