Children splashing water, Adilabad, Telangana
Mohammad Saud
Every summer, India braces for another round of record-breaking temperatures. Schools shut down, hospitals witness a surge in heatstroke cases, construction workers labour under dangerous conditions, crops wither in the fields, and cities scramble to arrange drinking water, cooling centres and emergency medical services. Yet despite heatwaves emerging as one of the country's deadliest climate hazards, India's financial response remains largely invisible.
A new report, Standing the Heat: An Analysis of Heatwave Financing in India's Union Budget, published by Greenpeace India in collaboration with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and the Budget Analysis and Research Centre (BARC) Trust, argues that the country's biggest challenge is no longer recognising the threat posed by extreme heat. Instead, it is financing an effective response. Drawing on a seven-year analysis of Union Budgets between 2020-21 and 2026-27, the study examines whether India's public expenditure is keeping pace with the growing climate emergency.
The report arrives at a critical moment. According to the analysis, nearly 57 percent of Indian districts—home to over three-quarters of the country's population—already face high to very high heat risk. The India Meteorological Department has identified 2024 as the hottest year recorded since observations began in 1901, while projections suggest that heatwave days could double in several Indian cities by the end of this decade.
These numbers translate into far more than uncomfortable summers. Heatwaves reduce labour productivity, increase electricity demand, strain public health systems, damage crops, threaten livestock and disproportionately affect outdoor workers and low-income households. The economic costs are becoming systemic, influencing sectors as diverse as agriculture, urban development, water security and public health.
Recognising this, many Indian states and cities have adopted Heat Action Plans (HAPs), establishing protocols for early warning, emergency response and public awareness. However, planning alone cannot build resilience. The report makes an important distinction between policy intent and financial commitment. While India has expanded institutional planning for heat, there has been no comparable evolution in the way governments allocate resources to address the crisis.
Unlike floods, cyclones or earthquakes, heatwaves do not have a dedicated place in India's Union Budget. There is no ministry responsible exclusively for heat resilience, no centrally sponsored scheme focused on extreme heat, and no budget line that allows policymakers to assess how much the country spends preparing for one of its fastest-growing climate risks.
To overcome this challenge, the report adopts a sophisticated budget-mapping methodology. Rather than limiting itself to schemes explicitly mentioning heatwaves, the researchers identified 16 Union ministries and analysed 130 schemes whose objectives could either directly or indirectly reduce heat vulnerability. These ranged from health and labour welfare to agriculture, water supply, housing, disaster management and environmental protection.
Each programme was classified according to whether it directly addresses heat-related risks—such as labour protection, crop insurance or health services—or contributes indirectly through broader investments like drinking water infrastructure, housing or livelihood support. The researchers also examined whether schemes primarily supported adaptation, mitigation or emergency preparedness and whether investments focused on long-term infrastructure or immediate response systems.
The findings expose a striking imbalance.
Across FY2020-21 to FY2026-27, only 27 of the 130 identified schemes were classified as directly relevant to heat risks. Even more revealing, merely 9-11 percent of tracked expenditure could be considered directly related to heat resilience, while nearly 90 percent flowed through broader development programmes that only indirectly reduce heat vulnerability. In FY2026-27, around ₹91,000 crore out of approximately ₹8.57 lakh crore tracked under the study was categorised as directly relevant to heat, with the remaining expenditure spread across general sectoral programmes.
This distinction matters because indirect investments are often designed with different objectives. Building rural roads, expanding drinking water supply or improving housing undoubtedly strengthens resilience, but these programmes rarely include specific provisions for managing heat emergencies, protecting outdoor workers or strengthening local cooling infrastructure.
The consequence is a financing architecture that treats heat as an incidental outcome of development rather than a climate hazard deserving dedicated investment.
The study also finds significant gaps between budget allocations and actual expenditure. Several ministries consistently spent substantially less than what had been budgeted, suggesting implementation bottlenecks that further weaken India's preparedness. In other words, even the limited resources available for heat-related interventions are not always fully utilised.
Perhaps the report's most important contribution is demonstrating that India's response to extreme heat is institutionally fragmented.
Responsibility is dispersed across at least 16 ministries, including Agriculture, Health, Environment, Jal Shakti, Labour, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Affairs, Earth Sciences and Science and Technology. Each ministry addresses a different aspect of heat resilience, yet none is responsible for integrating these efforts into a coherent national financing strategy.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change presents perhaps the clearest paradox. Although it serves as India's nodal ministry for climate change, the report finds that it has no scheme explicitly designed to tackle heat-related risks. All eight schemes identified under the ministry contribute only indirectly through environmental conservation, pollution control or ecosystem restoration. Even these modest allocations have struggled with utilisation, with actual expenditure in 2024-25 falling to less than half the budget estimate because of poor spending under pollution control programmes.
Agriculture tells a similar story. Of 40 schemes analysed, only three were classified as directly relevant to heat. Much of the ministry's spending supports nature-based solutions and social protection through programmes such as PM-KISAN and the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. While these improve farmers' resilience, investments in farmer capacity building, heat advisories and preparedness remain comparatively limited. The report also notes that agriculture has increasingly relied on social insurance to cushion climate shocks rather than investing in measures that reduce heat exposure itself.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also lacks dedicated financing for heat emergency preparedness. Although heat-related activities are embedded within broader health programmes, the report observes that spending under the Health Sector Disaster Preparedness and Response scheme remained well below allocated levels. Similarly, the National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health supports technical guidance and capacity building, but detailed budgetary information specific to heat interventions remains difficult to trace within larger health allocations.
The emerging picture is one where India possesses many pieces of the heat resilience puzzle, but they remain scattered across ministries, programmes and funding streams without an overarching financial framework that recognises extreme heat as a national development priority.
The report delivers a clear message: India can no longer rely on scattered development programmes to address the escalating risks of extreme heat. Instead, it calls for a dedicated financing architecture that recognises heatwaves as a distinct climate and development challenge. A key recommendation is to notify heatwaves as a standalone national disaster. Although eleven states have already recognised heatwaves as state-specific disasters, national recognition was provided only recently. Such a move would enable states to access dedicated disaster-response funds instead of depending on ad hoc budget reallocations. The report also notes that the 16th Finance Commission had recommended this step, citing the growing mortality and economic losses associated with extreme heat.
The study argues that Heat Action Plans, now adopted by many states and cities, often suffer from inadequate and unpredictable financing. While these plans identify interventions such as cooling centres, urban greening, drinking water facilities, occupational safety measures, public awareness campaigns and emergency health services, implementation remains inconsistent because no ministry has explicit financial responsibility for them. To address this gap, the report recommends ring-fenced budget allocations for heat resilience, enabling better tracking of expenditure, improved accountability and more effective programme evaluation.
Equally concerning is the persistent gap between budget allocations and actual expenditure across several ministries, indicating weak implementation capacity. The report recommends improving financial planning, ensuring timely fund releases and strengthening coordination between the Centre and states to maximise the impact of existing resources. Since heat affects multiple sectors—including health, labour, agriculture, water, housing and disaster management—it also advocates establishing a national institutional mechanism to coordinate heat financing across ministries. Such an integrated approach, the report argues, is essential for aligning investments with India's rapidly growing heat resilience needs.
Another key finding of the report is the imbalance between long-term infrastructure spending and immediate heat-response measures. Nearly 86 percent of heat-relevant infrastructure expenditure in the 2026–27 Union Budget is directed towards long-term investments such as water supply, health infrastructure, housing and irrigation. While these are essential for building resilience, they do little to address the immediate impacts of increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves.
The report argues that cities require dedicated investments in urban heat resilience, including cool roofs, shaded public spaces, cooling shelters, urban forests, reflective pavements and accessible drinking water facilities. However, despite growing urban heat risks, there is no dedicated national programme under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to support such interventions. Although AMRUT 2.0 offers opportunities to integrate heat resilience, India still lacks a comprehensive urban cooling strategy.
Worker protection is another significant gap. Millions of construction workers, agricultural labourers, sanitation workers, street vendors and delivery personnel face prolonged exposure to extreme heat, yet India has no dedicated occupational heat protection programme, workplace heat standards or compensation framework for heat-related illnesses. The report recommends financing workplace heat action plans, revised work schedules during peak temperatures, shaded rest areas, drinking water facilities and occupational health surveillance to protect workers while reducing productivity losses.
The health and water sectors also require stronger heat-focused investments. Hospitals need dedicated funding for heat emergency preparedness, surveillance systems and treatment facilities, while water programmes should go beyond infrastructure creation to strengthen groundwater management, watershed protection and reliable summer water supplies.
The report further highlights that women, children, the elderly and socially marginalised communities face disproportionate heat risks, yet existing gender budgets address these vulnerabilities only indirectly through welfare programmes. Future budgets should incorporate gender-responsive heat financing to ensure equitable access to cooling infrastructure, water, healthcare and livelihood support.
Ultimately, Standing the Heat argues that India must move beyond indirect development spending towards a dedicated, coordinated heat financing framework. As climate change intensifies, preparedness will depend not merely on Heat Action Plans but on whether public budgets invest proactively in protecting lives, livelihoods and infrastructure before extreme temperatures strike.