Funding, cooling and healthcare: Experts break down India's new heatwave disaster status

New Delhi: From outdoor workers sweating through a double shift to pregnant slum-dwellers one power cut away from health distress, heatwaves in India have always been an agony for the vulnerable population.

A glimmer of hope finally arrived on August 4, when the Centre recognised heatwaves as a notified natural calamity. The decision paves the way for states to tap into dedicated financial backing to roll out plans on the ground to shield the vulnerable and protect lives.

Speaking to PTI Videos about the Centre's decision, Krishna S. Vatsa, Head of the Department at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said heatwaves have become an increasingly prominent hazard in recent times, making it important for the government to address them on a long-term basis and provide the necessary resource support.


"Once notified as hazards, states will be able to access the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF) to respond to and mitigate both lightning and heatwaves. As these hazards have grown increasingly prominent in recent times, it's important for the government at all levels to address them on a long-term basis, backed by adequate resources, a step that will have a lasting, positive impact," Vatsa told PTI.

"So far, the response has largely been at the level of plans, frameworks, and awareness; what's needed now are concrete measures on the ground, and this allocation offers a good opportunity to earmark resources for exactly that," he added.

Explaining how the plan will work, Vatsa said the government's funding acts as seed money, an initial push that helps cities set up heat action plans (HAPs), making it easier to draw in additional funding from citizens, CSR, and other schemes.

"If a city or urban disaster management authority, or a municipal government, wants to set up cooling shelters, add more water points, or improve thermal comfort in public spaces, these resources can be invested in such interventions. It becomes catalytic, seed assistance that can be leveraged to attract more resources from other sources," Vatsa said.

He said district administrations and municipal corporations are responsible for implementing HAPs locally, deciding how to source and invest resources. "I expect this to lead to more HAPs and local measures over the next five years, along with greater recognition of the climatic factors driving rising temperatures," Vatsa said.

Discussing the economic impact of heatwaves on the informal workforce, Arunabha Ghosh, Founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), highlighted that heat stress is not just a climatic event; it's an economic calamity impacting workforce productivity.

He said the Centre's notification is important because, until recently, an individual state could notify a heatwave but tap into only about 10 per cent of the SDRF and 20 per cent of the SDMF, a gap that has now been removed.

"India is a growing economy that will continue to expand for decades, meaning more infrastructure will keep getting built, and much of the workforce will continue working outdoors. Heat stress, therefore, isn't just a climatic event; it's an economic calamity, impacting workforce productivity," Ghosh told PTI.

He further underscored that responding to heat stress has to be a mitigation measure, which means reducing risk in advance by identifying the areas, sectors, and regions likely to be worst affected.

"It also means revisiting our recently upgraded labour laws to ensure proper ventilation for workers, not just outdoors, but indoors too. Equally important is accounting for the informal labour force, a large share of our workforce that risks remaining invisible in response measures despite being critical to the Indian economy," the CEEW CEO told PTI.

Welcoming the government's decision, Harshal Ramesh Salve, physician at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, observed that the overall impact will depend on implementation and how states prepare to mitigate the impact of heatwaves on both high-risk and general populations.

He noted that it is important to strengthen the health system and social structures to mitigate the impact of heatwaves for long-term gain, particularly for vulnerable communities, adding that treating and preventing severe heatwave impact isn't difficult, but requires awareness, prioritisation, and identifying the vulnerable section.

"There's a poverty-health cycle, where people spend most of their money out of pocket to access healthcare. Providing financial support or rehabilitation through state-sponsored schemes can improve the economic status of affected individuals while preventing financial hardship caused by illness, ultimately contributing to a healthier population overall," Salve told PTI.

When asked whether scaling up passive cooling measures already implemented in several cities would now be easier, Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the Health and Climate Resilience team at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in India, said it would, drawing a parallel with the Covid pandemic, when notifying it as a disaster brought the system into coordinated action.

"While heatwave wasn't notified nationally, around 11 to 12 states had already done so locally. The real gap was coherence between national and sub-national policies. This notification removes that ambiguity and gives heat action plans stronger policy, legal, and financial backing through SDRF, NDRF, SDMF, and NDMF funds," Tiwari told PTI.

He added that India's heat action plan framework was already in place nationwide before the notification, giving the country a stronger starting point than it had for other disasters notified in the past.

"We prepared in advance, and now have the legal and financial backing to turn plans into action on the ground," he said.

Tiwari further stressed that the focus now must shift from increasing the number of HAPs to ensuring they are locally owned, well-funded, effectively implemented, and built on stronger foundations like early warning systems, health preparedness, and long-term urban heat resilience.