Industry Odisha Bureau, May 13: Even though India reportedly remains most susceptible to heat exposure, the alleged yawning gap between the Heat Action Plans (HAPs) [formulated by most of the Indian state governments merely in shape of pen and paper] and their actual implementation aiming long-term solutions at the ground level is virtually making the whole exercise a sheer drawing-room assessment.
While the 2025 edition of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, and as reported by ‘Down To Earth’ website reveals, “Heat exposure has led to the loss of 247 billion potential labour hours in 2024 marking a record high and a 124 per cent increase compared to 1990-1999 levels.”
It has also been reported that “there was an unusual rise in temperatures even in a comparatively cool state like Himachal Pradesh in March 2026.”
Experts associated with the environmental and climate justice campaign view that the HAPs are of no avail unless and until the risks posed by the rising heatwave conditions are “effectively reduced and the deeper structural issues and causes of heat exposure in the Indian cities are religiously addressed.”
The findings of the surveys undertaken by the experts reportedly reveal, “The HAPs fail to adequately address the harsh realities being faced, especially by the outdoor workers, elderly people, women and children as well as the communities living in informal settlements as millions of Indian people are found living in heat-trapped houses.”
The experts have also pointed finger at the “dense concrete jungles mushrooming alarmingly in most of the Indian cities today with green spaces shockingly shrinking along with water bodies vanishing fast by giving a damn to the so-called urban planning that has resulted in a fiasco.”
It is high time the HAPs formulated by the state governments in India should seriously see that the HAPs must guarantee “legal teeth, accountability fixed, sector-specific targets with timelines, and above all adequate fund provisions with regular audits being done with utmost honesty and integrity”.
Read More: Odisha’s agriculture sector faces the brunt of climate change
