Policy Update
Madhesh Raj P R
Background
In recent years, heatwaves have become a major concern worldwide. The recent incidents of heatwaves have shown the severe effects of climate change and the urgent need to address environmental challenges, especially in India. Between 1992 and 2015, heatwaves took more than 20,000 lives in India, with 2,422 deaths in 2015 alone (NDMA, 2016). India experienced its longest heatwave in 2024, spanning nearly a month across several states. In 2026, among the world’s top 50 hottest cities, 14 are situated in India, according to an Oxford University study. India has consistently been recording several hundred heatstroke cases and thousands of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion, dehydration, diarrhoea, and even exacerbation of health conditions, among others, every year.
After continuous cases of deaths caused by heatwaves, the Indian Government, through NDMA, came up with National Guidelines to address the Heatwave problem named “Prevention and Management of Heat-Wave” in 2016 to establish a framework for an action plan. It was revised twice in 2017 and 2019 to improve implementation strategies and promote long-term adaptation methods, respectively. A heatwave “is a condition of atmospheric temperature that leads to physiological stress, which sometimes may cause death,” according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) report, 2019.
Functioning
The 2019 Guidelines are the plan that is still in effect by the NDMA. It is an expansion of the plans and strategies of its predecessors and enhances monitoring and evaluation of collected data. This revised version takes up a comprehensive framework of disaster risk management, and additionally, it acknowledges heatwaves as a “disaster management” issue rather than as a narrow public health issue. It recommends the integration of urban planning with climate adaptation, introduces long-term mitigation measures, expands the role of local bodies and community participation in tackling the effects of heatwaves and also provides a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with detailed annexures containing a set of “Do’s and Don’ts”.
It also explains that concepts of Urban Heat Islands, concrete structures, reduced vegetation, poor housing, and lack of ventilation have all contributed towards increased heat exposure. In order to tackle it, the guidelines recommend cool roofs, urban green spaces, reflective building materials, improved urban planning, and shaded public spaces. Furthermore, it brought in a new emphasis on “Acclimatisation,” whereby workers gradually adapt to heat rather than working during extremely hot temperatures. It also outlines the symptoms of heat cramps, heat strokes, and heat exhaustion and provides the steps for preparedness. It also promotes community participation through Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), resident welfare associations, volunteers, civil societies, schools, panchayats and others.
The list of things that the NDMA recommended to the state governments in the 2019 revised Guidelines is as follows:
- Risk Assessment: Identify vulnerable areas, groups, conditions and available resources to prevent and tackle heatwaves and heat-related illnesses
- Preparing the Heat Action Plan: Formulate a plan that includes departmental roles, timelines, coordination mechanisms, communication strategy, emergency response, hospital readiness, awareness campaigns and long-term mitigation
- Early Warning System: India Meteorological Department forecasts are used to trigger alerts with standard colour-coded heat alerts, indicating increasing heat exposure and the necessity for preparedness
- Public Communication: Through television, radio, newspapers, SMS, and social media. Focus on hydration, avoid outdoor work, recognise symptoms, protect vulnerable groups.
- Departmental Response: Responsibilities clearly distributed among health department, labour department, educational department, urban local bodies, police, electricity department, water supply department and media
- Medical Response: Identify, treat and report illnesses quickly, maintain emergency stocks, train healthcare workers
- Protection of Workers: Shaded rest areas, cool drinking water, shorter work shifts, work during cooler hours, acclimatisation and provision of medical attention
- Long-term Prevention: Focus more on prevention through urban green spaces, cool roofs, improved building materials, better planning of land use, increased vegetation, climate-sensitive urban development
- Monitoring: Evaluate deaths, illnesses, response time, effectiveness of awareness campaigns, inter-departmental coordination and weaknesses in implementation.
Performance
India’s heatwave management framework has strengthened the country’s capacity to anticipate, prepare for and respond to extreme heat. The NDMA’s guidelines provide for a common framework for state and local authorities, encouraging early warning systems, heat action plans, public advisories, inter-departmental coordination and measures such as changes in school timings and work schedules. Their implementation has also contributed to shifting heatwave management from a predominantly relief-oriented approach towards a preventive and preparedness-focused approach.
However, the implementation poof these guidelines remains uneven across states and local bodies. The existence of a heat action plan does not necessarily translate into effective implementation. Some major limitations for this lie in institutional capacity, funding, health-system preparedness and local coordination. Further, many action plans focus heavily on awareness and short-term response, while relatively less attention is given to structural measures such as urban heat mitigation, housing conditions, access to cooling and protection of outdoor workers.
The Ahmedabad HAP demonstrates the potential of locally adopted interventions, particularly through early warnings and coordination across departments. However, replicating such outcomes nationally remains challenging because heat exposure and institutional capacity vary considerably across regions. Overall, the guidelines have improved India’s preparedness architecture, but their long-term performance depends on stronger implementation, local adaptation, systematic evaluation and greater emphasis on reducing underlying vulnerability to extreme heat.
Impact
It has been nearly a decade since the national guidelines for heatwave management were first issued. The guidelines provide the institutional framework, and it is the HAPs that play the major role in preventing heatwaves’ ill effects. Thus, the impact of the guidelines can be better understood through an analysis of these HAPs. The available data suggest measurable improvement in public health preparedness, institutionalisation of heat-risk management and reductions in heat-related mortality in regions where HAPs were systematically implemented. However, varying impacts are recorded in different regions, reflecting differing degrees of implementation and institutional capacity.
Table 1: Impact of HAPs in Nine Major Indian Cities
| Indicator | Data |
| Cities assessed | 9 |
| Cities reporting heat-specific training for health workers | 8 (out of 9) |
| Cities with heat-death surveillance systems | 7 (out of 9) |
| Cities installing automatic weather stations | 3 (out of 9) |
| Respondents with access to future climate projections | 2 out of 42 (4.8%) |
| Health facilities with ORS corners | 99% |
| Health facilities with trained staff in heat-illness management | 74% |
| Health facilities with adequate cooling measures | 32% |
| Health facilities without adequate cooling measures | 68% |
Source: Sustainable Futures Collaborative Report, March 2025
This multi-city assessment demonstrates that most of the visible action is on heat preparedness of the public health system. Eight out of the nine surveyed cities reported institutionalised training programs for healthcare workers, while seven have established heat-death surveillance systems, indicating that heatwaves are being increasingly managed as recurring public health risks rather than as isolated emergencies.
The study also found improvements in emergency preparedness, with 99 per cent of the surveyed health facilities establishing ORS corners, and 74 per cent providing clinical training for heat illness treatment. However, the analysis also shows that these gains remain concentrated exclusively within the health sector. Long-term resilience measures have shown slow progression, with only three cities having automatic weather station networks and merely 4.8 per cent of the respondents reporting access to future climate projections. Findings indicate that, albeit improving institutional preparedness for response, climate-informed planning has remained comparatively underdeveloped.
Table 2: Impact of Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan
| Indicator | Before HAP | After HAP |
| Relative mortality risk at 47℃ | 2.34 | 1.25 |
| Estimated annual heat-related deaths | Baseline (2007-2010) | Approximately 1,190 fewer deaths annually |
| Heat warning dissemination | Limited | Institutionalised |
| Public awareness campaigns | Sporadic | Seasonal and systematic |
Source: Hess et al. (2018)
The Ahmedabad HAP provides one of the strongest pieces of evidence on the effectiveness of organised Heatwave management in India. The Hess et al. (2018) evaluation shows that the relative mortality risk during extreme heat events declined from 2.34 before implementation of the guidelines to 1.25 post-implementation, which represents a 46.6 per cent reduction in mortality during extreme temperatures. The study estimated that approximately 1,190 heat-related deaths were avoided annually after the introduction of early warning systems, public advisories, and strengthened health-sector preparedness. Ahmedabad serves as a model for heatwave management, based on these findings, which provide important empirical evidence for a broader policy framework and demonstrate the potential of well-implemented HAPs.
Overall, these data indicate that the National Guidelines for Heatwave Management have had the most significant impact in institutionalising heat-risk management and preparing pubic health systems. Multi-city implementation shows the increase in strengthened surveillance, health workers’ training and emergency preparedness, while the Ahmedabad evaluation provides robust evidence of the policy’s ability to translate into significant reductions in heat-related mortality rates. Although the magnitude of impact differs across jurisdictions, the systematic implementation of HAPs has effectively proven to improve urban resilience to extreme heat and reduce preventable health losses.
Emerging Issues
Climate change is a dynamic issue and cannot be solved by a single policy action. In that manner, the risks posed by heatwaves are growing with the changing environmental conditions. Some of the most concerning issues posed by the heatwaves that have emerged in recent years are growing trends of nighttime heat, urban heating, gender-based issues and inconsistencies in conducting schools during peak summer.
According to the May 2025 Report of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), heat extremes are increasing linearly across the country. It also notes that the number of very warm nights is increasing more rapidly than that of very hot days, especially in the past decade. The cause is attributed to the influence of El Niño and La Niña effects around the world. This is concerning because nighttime is when the human body recovers from exposure to heat and the physical and mental work done during the day, and when temperatures are high at night, it affects this recovery, causing health risks, particularly to vulnerable groups.
According to the aforementioned report, urban districts experience relatively more very hot nights and days than other parts of India. This is attributed to the ‘Urban Heat Island’ effect, where concrete buildings absorb heat during the day and, due to congested and environmentally unfriendly layouts, the heat gets retained within these structures and is released very gradually after sunset, making nighttime relatively less cool than rural areas. With growing trends of urban areas growing more in population, this poses a serious threat to the country.
Findings of this study suggest that hot-spell durations are increasing in nearly 40 per cent of the districts by three days over the past decade, although the intensity of heat is only moderate. Nevertheless, this suggests that the occurrence of heatwaves is becoming more frequent and longer with every passing year.
The Guardian reports that schools are shut due to extreme heat for more and more days every year, according to some school officials. It also reports on cases of employed women struggling to balance both work and their children, who at times have compensatory online classes. It reports on the lack of cooperation between schools, childcare systems and employment structures in adapting to the disrupted conditions caused by extreme heat, which passively affects the economic growth of both individuals and the country. The article points out the absence of gender inclusive planning in most of the HAPs and points out that gender-disaggregated data is not analysed effectively to understand the challenges faced by women in the country.
Way Forward
The National Guidelines have made a significant impact in addressing heat-related risks for nearly a decade since their implementation. In order to tackle, prevent and build resilience for the future of the country and its people, it could adopt and implement even more necessary measures that address the growing challenges in heat-risk management. It is necessary that HAPs evolve from short-term, seasonal responses to long-term climate adaptation strategies as heatwaves become more frequent and prolonged. This requires moving beyond emergency responses and short-term preparedness towards structural changes in urban planning, housing, healthcare, labour protection and access to cooling so as to build long-term resilience to tackle climate change.
The absence of effective heat vulnerability mapping in several states could be addressed by introducing and applying a standard index for comprehensible heat vulnerability assessment. The state governments could formulate their HAPs and improve grassroots-level operations based on this index, along with adhering to the Early Warning System alerts and the bulletins and forecasts regularly released by the IMD. The development of a standard national-level framework of evaluation to assess the performance of different departments in every state involved in heat-risk management to identify and rectify their functions in future HAPs, every year.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has approved heatwaves as an eligible disaster to receive funding from the State Disaster Mitigation Funds (SDMFs), which could be used by the states to target heat-risk drivers in their regions at the district level and develop targeted measures to address them. Additionally, the NDMA should establish and manage a standard, central database of HAPs across all states that tracks implementation, ensures accountability, improves transparency, and helps analyse several districts and states to improve review and future planning. Integrating existing recommendations for Urban Planning as mandatory requirements for future projects could enable sustainable and climate-friendly building of urban spaces and prevent problems such as the Urban Heat Island effect.
Developing measures to incorporate protection of labourers, working professionals and outdoor workers, among other vulnerable groups, by adding mandatory work-rest cycles, revised working hours during extreme heat conditions, increasing access to drinking water and building shaded rest areas. Promotion of heat-resilient infrastructure among schools such as reflective paints, cool roofs, improved ventilation and tree plantations could help reduce the risk of heat illnesses among children. Furthermore, adaptation of dynamic school timings with an optional hybrid class model could help prevent complete shutting down of schools in the event of extreme heat temperatures.
Referrences
- India Meteorological Department: https://mausam.imd.gov.in/responsive/heatwave_guidance.php
- National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA): https://ndma.gov.in/heat-wave
- Shravan Prabhu, Keerthana Anthikat Suresh, Srishti Mandal, Divyanshu Sharma, and Vishwas Chitale, 2025, “How Extreme Heat is Impacting India: Assessing District-level Heat Risk”, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW): https://www.ceew.in/sites/default/files/mapping-climate-risks-and-impacts-of-extreme-heatwave-disaster-in-indian-districts.pdf
- Arsalan Bukhari and Naila Tabbasum, 2026, “How India’s heatwaves are shutting schools – and pushing women out of the workforce”, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/22/how-india-heatwaves-shutting-schools-pushing-women-out-of-the-workforce
- Nethmi Jayaratne Kariyawasam, Jesus Lizana and Radhika Khosla, 2026, “Moving beyond exposure: a globally comparable framework for heat risk assessment in cities”, Sustainable Cities and Society, Volume 147, 107535, ISSN 2210-6707: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2026.107535
- “One day of extreme heat causes 3,400 excess deaths across India, study estimates”, 2026, The Hindu: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/one-day-of-extreme-heat-causes-3400-excess-deaths-across-india-study-estimates/article71036585.ece
- Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tammana Dalal, Alexandr Kassinis, Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Escandita Tewari, Navroz K. Dubash, 2025, “Is India Ready for a Warming World?”, Sustainable Furtures Collaborative: https://www.sustainablefutures.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Is-India-Ready-for-a-Warming-World-How-Heat-Resilience-Measures-Are-Being-Implemented-for-11-Percent-of-Indias-Urban-Population-in-Some-of-Its-Most-At-Risk-Cities.pdf
About the Author
Madhesh Raj P R is currently pursuing his Master’s in Political Science at Madras Christian College, Chennai. He is a Research and Editorial Intern at IMPRI, with a keen interest in governance and educational policies and aims to contribute meaningfully while expanding his research knowledge and skills.
Acknowledgement
The author extends his sincere gratitude to Kavin Adithya, Pallavi Lad and the IMPRI team for their invaluable guidance throughout the process.
Disclaimer
All views expressed in this article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
