India’s Heat Action Plans risk failing the most vulnerable because their narrow, technical definitions of “vulnerability” overlook the intersecting realities of caste, gender, class, and labour informality that shape heat risk.
India is experiencing increasingly frequent and intense heat waves driven by climate change. A study released earlier this year identified a “high to very high” heat risk faced by 57 per cent of Indian districts, which house approximately 76 per cent of India’s population. In 2024 alone, over 40,000 heatstroke cases and 110 confirmed deaths were reported. The growing frequency and severity of heat disasters first prompted cities like Ahmedabad — and eventually other states and cities — to develop comprehensive Heat Action Plans (HAPs) as their frontline policy response. These were aimed at reducing heat-related illnesses and deaths through a mix of early warnings, public awareness, and emergency response protocols. While India now has over 100 HAPs, most still overlook the structural social vulnerabilities that shape heat risk.
Current definitions of “risk” and “vulnerability” largely focus on heat intensity and health comorbidities, often overlooking the intersectional drivers of heat exposure — including caste-based spatial segregation, gendered labour roles, and informal housing conditions — that amplify heat’s impact.
In India, the unequal impact of heat stress reveals fundamental flaws in how vulnerability and risk are conceptualised and assessed within the HAPs. Current definitions of “risk” and “vulnerability” largely focus on heat intensity and health comorbidities, often overlooking the intersectional drivers of heat exposure — including caste-based spatial segregation, gendered labour roles, and informal housing conditions — that amplify heat’s impact. This disjuncture between technical vulnerability categories and lived realities risks misdirecting policy resources, leaving the most exposed without adequate support. This piece argues that most Indian HAPs rely on narrow technical definitions of vulnerability that fail to capture the social, caste, gender, and occupational realities of the country’s working poor, thereby weakening their effectiveness. It underscores the urgent need to take cognisance of these factors while drafting future HAPs.
Under the framework of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), risk is defined as a function of hazard (the intensity of heat), exposure (the presence in heat-prone areas), and vulnerability (the socioeconomic and institutional capacity to cope). While most Indian HAPs address hazards, they tend to under-theorise vulnerability. An analysis of 37 HAPs by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) revealed systematic inadequacies in how vulnerability is defined and operationalised. It was noted that only two out of the 37 HAPs explicitly conducted vulnerability assessments. While 25 plans acknowledged occupation, just 15 mentioned slum settlements or people below the poverty line. Even these seldom engaged with people’s actual capacity to cope or respond to heat hazards.
This narrow framing misses the full picture of vulnerability, which is shaped not only by exposure but also by sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which in turn are determined by health, housing, income, and social status. While most HAPs list these factors on paper, they fail to connect them to lived realities on the ground, reducing “vulnerability” into a technical checklist rather than a meaningful guide for action.
A closer look at the heat plans from India’s most heat-exposed states reveals a narrow and often tokenistic approach to vulnerability. Although they broadly define vulnerability through health impacts, these plans fail to address how caste, gender, and class intersect to exacerbate such vulnerabilities. Typical lists of “at-risk” occupations include construction workers, street vendors, rickshaw pullers, farmers, and waste pickers. Few go further: only Kerala accounts for jobs like delivery workers, and just a handful of plans mention indoor workers. This narrow focus overlooks the bigger picture, i.e., the informality of India’s workforce. Many informal workers — often Dalit, Adivasi, or from denotified tribes — face long hours in the heat with little to no protection. Yet their realities remain invisible in the country’s heat action plans. This narrow framing misses the full picture of vulnerability, which is shaped not only by exposure but also by sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which in turn are determined by health, housing, income, and social status. While most HAPs list these factors on paper, they fail to connect them to lived realities on the ground, reducing “vulnerability” into a technical checklist rather than a meaningful guide for action.
The gap between generic vulnerability categories — defined by health comorbidities — and lived realities shaped by housing insecurity, lack of water access, informal work conditions, caste-based spatial segregation, and economic precarity is stark. Gender illustrates this gap clearly. Extreme heat exposure due to occupation has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in India, including doubling the risk of stillbirth and miscarriage. Many female workers also report dehydration, swelling, menstrual cramps, kidney infections, and other ailments from prolonged heat exposure. These risks are compounded by the fact that many women work in overcrowded, heat-trapping environments — such as construction sites, garment factories, or poorly ventilated homes — often lacking the agency to demand breaks or better conditions and facing direct sun exposure without access to shade or toilets. While all HAPs identify women as vulnerable, they treat them as a single category, overlooking, for instance, how the risks faced by a wealthy office worker differ from those faced by a Dalit factory worker. Even when gender and income are acknowledged together, the plans rarely go beyond awareness campaigns, failing to recognise that female vulnerability is not a fixed attribute, but is shaped by intersecting factors of work, resources, and power.
Likewise, caste and socio-economic status remain largely invisible in HAPs. The CPR review found that none of the plans that addressed occupation also explicitly acknowledged caste, or how historical exclusion creates vulnerability. Socio-economic placeholders such as “slum dweller” and “Below Poverty Line” — terms that are often historically and inextricably caste-coded — are frequently used without context. Such a neutral framing ignores the reality that a worker may simultaneously face caste-based stigma, be barred from access to shade and water taps, and have no social safety net. Although India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) formally recognised Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as additionally vulnerable to disasters (albeit only in 2019), many plans still fail to integrate caste-based vulnerabilities into their frameworks. Research on occupational heat exposure shows that marginalised groups tend to face 150 per cent higher heat exposure during work than dominant caste groups — yet this disparity is not reflected in India’s heat action plans.
Socio-economic placeholders such as “slum dweller” and “Below Poverty Line” — terms that are often historically and inextricably caste-coded — are frequently used without context. Such a neutral framing ignores the reality that a worker may simultaneously face caste-based stigma, be barred from access to shade and water taps, and have no social safety net.
This myopia carries economic costs. One heat risk governance estimate suggests that current humid-heat conditions have already cost up to 7 per cent of India’s GDP through lost labour productivity. Informal workers bear an additional burden, losing wages when heat-related illness forces them to stop working, losses that often go unrecorded. Inconsistent definitions used by the IMD, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the police result in fragmented and unreliable data on heatwave deaths. Without reliable data tied to socio-economic groups, heat action funding and accountability remain minimal.
To address these shortcomings, India needs to adopt a holistic risk lens. This includes integrating hazards (heat intensity, humidity, and urban heat islands) with exposure (who is physically present in high-heat areas) and vulnerability (the socioeconomic factors that shape adaptive capacity). Heat risk must be seen as highly local, requiring place-based vulnerability assessments that direct interventions to the right groups. Getting the vulnerability assessments right would ensure efficient targeting of scarce resources —such as emergency funds, cooling shelters, and water stations — to the most-affected. For example, a city could use heat-risk maps to identify which wards contain large numbers of outdoor workers or congested informal settlements, and then prioritise those areas for water stations and health check-ups.
To address these shortcomings, India needs to adopt a holistic risk lens. This includes integrating hazards (heat intensity, humidity, and urban heat islands) with exposure (who is physically present in high-heat areas) and vulnerability (the socioeconomic factors that shape adaptive capacity).
Although HAP measures target women, they must go beyond acknowledgement and awareness programmes. Gender budgeting initiatives aligning with broader equality goals can help undertake inclusive, transformative steps. The introduction of heat audits in informal workplaces that employ women can also be encouraged. For caste-based equity, mandated disaggregated vulnerability assessments in HAPs, recognising caste-based access to shade, water, and services, can be helpful. Addressing labour informality, on the other hand, would require expanded labour protections to include heat resilience measures in the informal economy.
Community engagement could prove a critical element of this shift. Empowering on-ground communities — such as street vendors — might allow for timely, locally tailored interventions. In Delhi’s markets, for instance, vendors now collect money to install public water pots — a kind of informal vendor social responsibility” initiative — because official water points are lacking. These same vendors could also serve as first responders, offering ORS to customers or passersby who collapse from heat stress.
A bottom-up approach would also require input from those who experience extreme heat. Communities should therefore be able to co-design heat actions, ensuring plans fit their needs — whether that’s equitable water kiosks, shade-net programs for street stalls, or prioritised labour inspections in high-risk industries.
While India’s HAPs are a necessary first step, they need significant amendments to be truly effective. Addressing overlapping vulnerabilities and tailoring plans to local geography, demography, and social realities is only the beginning. Policy efforts must move beyond a narrow “zero casualty” goal towards actively minimising the broader impacts of heat on vulnerable communities. If India’s heat action plans are to truly protect the vulnerable, they must shift their focus and means from technical compliance to social justice. Unless equity is built into the design, funding, and execution of India’s HAPs, climate resilience will remain a privilege, not a right.
Alisha Mehra was an intern with the Observer Research Foundation.
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