Opinion: Why India’s Heat Planning is in the Hot Seat
India’s cities are facing record heatwaves, with temperatures nearing 48°C and rising risks to public health, workers and urban livability. This in-depth analysis explains why India’s heat planning is under scrutiny, how Heat Action Plans, early warning systems and tools like CHAITRA and EHI-N aim to build targeted, people-centric heat resilience, and why integrated, long-term strategies are critical for climate adaptation.
One day of extreme heat causes 3,400 excess deaths across India, study estimates
Researchers Piyush Narang and Ashok Gadgil from the India Energy and Climate Center at the University of California Berkeley, US, said that even though global studies highlight a surging heat-related mortality, granular spatial-temporal data on how heatwaves affect mortality in India’s districts remain inaccessible to common researchers.
One day of extreme heat tied to 3,400 excess deaths in India, nearly 30,000 over five days: Study
Temperatures have remained above 45 degrees Celsius in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in recent days.
One Day Of Extreme Heat Causes 3,400 Excess Deaths Across India, Study Estimates
Heatwave to severe heatwave conditions were prevailing in north, central and east India, with temperatures consistently exceeding 45 degrees Celsius in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana over past few days.
Estimating heatwave-induced excess mortality in India’s districts
India is among the world’s most heat-exposed nations, with hundreds of millions of people facing dangerous temperatures each summer and a mortality burden that remains poorly understood at the district level.
Heat Stress Monitoring for Outdoor Workers, Powered by EHI-N*
SHRAM provides real-time heat stress monitoring across India using EHI-N*, a physiologically-based model calibrated to MET levels developed by the IECC team. EHI-6* estimates heat stress experienced by workers doing heavy labor in direct sunlight.
View current conditions by district, 3-day forecasts, and sign up for personalized alerts when hazardous heat levels are detected.
EHI-N*: A Modified Extended Heat Index for Laboring Populations
Approximately 2.4 billion workers perform manual labor globally, yet current heat stress indices are calibrated to sedentary individuals, systematically underestimating risk for active workers.
Chaitra – Technical Specifications
CHAITRA is a ward-level decision support tool built on Google Earth Engine that can enable state and city officials to accelerate heat action planning, identify wards most at risk and estimate investment needed for different mitigation measures.
Scaling data-driven heat action planning using CHAITRA – City Heat Action Intelligence and Risk Atlas
Over 250 Indian cities have adopted Heat Action Plans (HAPs), but fewer than a handful include ward-level vulnerability assessments or translate risk data into quantified intervention needs.
Manual Work Under Extreme Heat: Using EHI-N* to protect laboring populations
India’s roughly 380 million outdoor and heat-exposed workers face escalating danger from extreme heat, yet the metrics used to declare heatwaves and trigger protective action systematically underestimate their risk.