What Delhi govt's 2025 Heat Action Plan promises & what it misses

The Print

24-04-2025

Experts welcomed an early implementation of the plan, but stressed the need for year-long solutions to build heat-resilient infrastructure. Short-term measures like installing water coolers, limiting outdoor work hours during the day, and setting up shelters are just temporary fixes, said Abhiyant Tiwari, lead, climate resilience and health at Natural Resources Defense Council. He contributed to the heat action plans for Ahmedabad and Jodhpur.
'Our preparedness is going to be the strongest,' said Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta Wednesday in a written statement. 'From roads to rooftops, we are working to ensure no citizen suffers because of the heat.'
New Delhi: With temperatures already soaring and the National Capital bracing for extreme heat this summer, the Delhi government has rolled out its Heat Action Plan, 2025.
'There is evidence that countries that had a functional early warning system or some form of disaster management plan saw at least eight times fewer disaster-related fatalities than those that didn't,' he said.
ThePrint explains the kind of interventions the newly sworn-in BJP government has planned for the Capital's residents under its first heat action plan, how these are different from the plans of its predecessors, and the impacts it is likely to have.
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What does the 2025 heat action plan promise?
Delhi's Heat Action Plan 2025 promises to install nearly 3,000 water coolers, cooling shelters on the roads, shaded areas on footpaths, and green roofs.
The agencies will also focus on providing residents with regular temperature updates and health advisories.
'We are partnering with central agencies, including the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), to implement this plan more effectively this season,' Delhi CM said.
The action has also roped in the city's hospitals, setting up heatwave wards and earmarking a dedicated team to handle heat-related ailments during the peak season.
Over 1,000 Aapda Mitras, trained disaster response volunteers, will also be recruited across the city in the coming weeks.
Reacting to these measures, Aditya Valiathan Pillai, a visiting fellow at sustainability think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC), emphasised the need to look at long-term solutions.
'Temperatures are progressively becoming warmer, and it will get worse. We need to come up with solutions that will help shape our cities for such a future. Emergency solutions alone, will not do much,' he said.
Warmer days ahead
Delhi has already started recording high temperatures, with the maximum readings breaching the 40-degree Celsius (°C) mark.
On Wednesday, the maximum temperature recorded at Delhi's Safdarjung observatory was 39.6°C.
The mercury rose to 39.9°C a day before this, over two notches higher than what is considered normal for this time of the year.
Delhi has already recorded its first spell of heatwave this season—April 7 to 9. Forecasts have also predicted another spell between 25-26 April.
The IMD uses a two-pronged approach to define heatwaves. First, they look at regional temperature increases. When temperatures in the plains exceed 40°C or 30°C in the hills, and this rise is more than 4.5°C above the normal range, a heatwave is declared. A 'severe heatwave' is when the temperature departure jumps to over 6.4°C.
The IMD also considers absolute values. If the mercury rockets to 45°C or higher, regardless of the usual highs, it's classified as a heatwave, and, when the thermometer reads 47°C or more, it meets the criteria for a severe heatwave.
Heatwave action in other states
While the BJP is touting its heat action plan as the first to be implemented in the Capital, the previous AAP government implemented its versions of the plan.
However, the interventions lacked integration.
An assessment of the heat action plans in various cities by SFC said that Delhi's Heat Action Plan 2024, parts of which are similar to the 2025 plan, was only focused on short-term emergency interventions like increasing the availability of water in public spaces and increasing the capacity in hospitals right before and during the heat spells.
The report, titled 'Is India Ready for a Warming World? How Heat Resilience Measures Are Being Implemented for 11% of India's Urban Population in Some of Its Most At-Risk Cities' was published on the SFC website on 19 March 2025.
'Many important long-term actions are entirely absent, such as making household or occupational cooling available to the most heat-exposed, developing insurance cover for lost work, and electricity grid retrofits to improve transmission reliability and distribution safety, expanding fire management services for heat waves,' the report read.
Leading by example, Ahmedabad and Jodhpur HAPs lay out short- and long-term interventions for government agencies to follow.
In these cities, short-term actions like identifying vulnerable populations, such as the homeless, elderly, and children, and providing them with safe shelters before heatwaves strike, are integrated with larger-scale government planning and infrastructure adjustments to address the long-term impacts of climate change.
Examples include building heat-resistant buildings, implementing cooling roofs, developing heat warnings for farmers, and adopting climate-resilient agricultural practices.
'Delhi needs these solutions to ensure that these seasonal spells can be effectively handled,' Tiwari said.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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