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Bengaluru: India is living through a heatwave right now. 

On May 17, the India Meteorological Department announced that both daytime and night temperatures were “markedly above normal” – more than 5.1° Celsius above normal – in parts of central and northwestern India including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. Temperatures in Delhi are expected to touch 45° Celsius this week. These heatwave conditions – which can also turn into a severe heatwave in parts of Uttar Pradesh – will extend for almost a week, it warned.

This is the second heatwave that has swept across India this summer. Many parts of India witnessed a heatwave in mid- to late-April, and there were reports of people losing their lives too. 

But with global warming that’s not surprising, some would argue: we are in a “super” El Niño year after all, and climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves worldwide — including in India.

However, governance failures and not being prepared to deal with these high heat risks, or mitigate them, are aggravating the impacts of heat. There are several reasons why. The Indian government does not recognise a heatwave as a national disaster. Heat deaths are still drastically undercounted. More easier and visible short-term actions such as putting up cooling stations are implemented and funded more over crucial long-term actions. And those long-term actions that are being implemented – such as tree planting – are often not targeted at the right people or places, and therefore do not reach the communities that are the most vulnerable to high heat risks. But there are ways out, scientists say.

India: Hard-hit by heat 

A heatwave is defined as a period where local excess heat accumulates over a sequence of unusually hot days and nights, per the World Meteorological Organisation. According to the UN, the world witnessed around 4,89,000 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, with 45% occurring in Asia. India announces a heatwave to occur if the maximum temperature at a station reaches at least 40°C or more in the plains, and at least 30°C or more in the hills, and if the temperature increase from normal levels is by more than 4.5°C (or when the actual maximum temperature is more than 45°C). 

India is among the countries hardest hit by heat. On account of India’s high population and heat wave area, a study in 2022 listed India’s population and economy as being the most exposed to heat risks between 2030 and 2100. According to one estimate, India lost an estimated 259 billion labour hours each year due to extreme heat and humidity between 2001 and 2020, a figure that amounts to an economic loss of around Rs 46 lakh crore. 

And yet, the union government still does not recognise a heatwave as a national disaster. As a result, there is a limit on the funding that states and departments can avail of to implement actions to tackle heat.

A woman covers a child from the scorching heat during the summer season, in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. Photo: PTI.

Heat is not a national disaster

Currently, states can tap into two mitigation funds – the National Disaster Mitigation Fund and the State Disaster Mitigation Fund – to implement heat actions. But there are also two existing response funds to tackle notified national disasters (there are currently 12, including cold waves) in general: the National Disaster Response Fund and the State Disaster Response Fund. Currently, states can use only up to 10% of their SDRF allocation for disasters that they classify as local or state-specific. Funds under the NDRF are not available to them at all – because heat is not recognised as a national disaster.

“For a state like Uttar Pradesh — with 75 districts, over 240 million people, and one of the highest aggregate heat-risk profiles in the country — a 10 per cent access ceiling on an already limited fund is not a safety net; it is a bureaucratic fiction,” wrote Ankit Mishra, a researcher who studies environment, climate change, public policy and governance at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute in Prayagraj, in a commentary on Down To Earth.

But this could change – if the government pays heed to........

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