Urban centres suffer more from extreme heat than rural areas due to the “urban heat island” effect, where concrete-heavy infrastructure such as paved roads, tightly packed high-rise apartments with dense populations trap heat, pushing temperatures higher. In India, this effect can exacerbate heat up to 8–10°C in dense built-up areas. The World Bank estimates that cities like Surat, Lucknow and Chennai see higher heat-related deaths every year. In Chennai alone, approximately 2,500 die each year from extreme heat, and about 1,000 people each in Surat and Lucknow. If global warming continues unabated, these numbers could increase by 30-50% by 2050.

Since Ahmedabad launched South Asia’s first HAP in 2013, over 100 cities in India are estimated to have developed similar plans. These HAPs function as standard operating procedures before, during, and after the heat season, including strategies such as temporary cooling shelters, public awareness campaigns, and revised work hours for outdoor workers. Our recent analysis of 10 city HAPs—Ahmedabad, Surat, Bhubaneshwar, Nagpur, Rajkot, Chandrapur, Jodhpur, Delhi, Vijayawada, and Vadodara—finds common limitations.

While cities are experimenting with a variety of solutions, most plans rely on short-term, relief-oriented measures rather systemic vulnerabilities. For example, in all the 10 cities, temporary cooling shelters and water kiosks open during heatwaves, providing much-needed relief. But these relief measures do not tackle underlying risk factors such as dense settlements with low green cover, or heat-exposed livelihoods. Consequently, cities continue in a cycle of reacting to heat emergencies rather than preparing for rising temperatures.

There are a few examples of potentially transformational adaptation. Ahmedabad's Cool Roofs initiative is experimenting with heat-resistant, reflective roofing materials city-wide, particularly targeting vulnerable informal settlements, through government-non-government partnerships. Jodhpur, a recent entrant to heat action planning, is hoping to integrate cool roof solutions in high-risk wards.

Extreme heat does not affect everyone equally. Vulnerability depends on age, gender, income, occupation, and living conditions. Outdoor workers, children, and the elderly are often listed as high-risk groups in HAPs. However, these plans rarely consider how intersecting factors—such as low income and lack of access to cooling—intensify risks for specific populations.

Bhubaneshwar and Jodhpur stand out with more tailored assessments that consider local factors such as income and occupation. These targeted approaches are essential, yet they remain exceptions. Most cities take a broad approach, often leaving the most vulnerable—such as outdoor daily wage labourers and low-income families in dense informal settlements—without the specific support they need.

Current vulnerability and hazard assessment methods focus solely on peak daytime temperatures, neglecting critical factors like heatwave duration, nighttime highs, and humidity. This leads to incomplete solutions that overlook how heat interacts with the built environment, living and working spaces, and social norms and behaviours.

Recent efforts by cities to experiment with local temperature thresholds indicate a shift towards proactive measures. In 2024, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has piloted a heat index that combines temperature and humidity.

Heat governance remains fragmented in many cities. Key departments, like health and urban planning, often lack coordination, limiting continuity across sectors. For instance, while most HAPs assign response roles to health departments, they fail to integrate with urban planning initiatives, such as creating shaded public spaces or revising building codes. Although most HAPs aim to have inter-departmental coordination, interviews with city officials indicate coordination remains limited and difficult due to low incentives and competing priorities.

Some cities have begun engaging NGOs and community groups for public awareness efforts. This collaboration is a step in the right direction, but typically, NGO participation is sought for public awareness campaigns and relief efforts or short-term measures like temporary cooling centres and nature-based solutions such as tree planting. This misses opportunities for systemic collaboration where non-governmental entities can become key enablers to deepen and scale transformative heat resilience strategies, drawing on their experience of working with vulnerable communities and understanding of place-based risk.

To close the growing heat "adaptation gap", cities must expand beyond short-term strategies and adopt a transformative approach.

● Place-based vulnerability and risk assessments: These should move beyond identifying broad vulnerable groups (e.g., outdoor workers or low-income communities) to more holistic assessments of how factors intersect to make certain groups more vulnerable. For instance, women in low-income households may face different risks compared to other demographics. Identifying high-risk occupations and neighbourhoods can improve targeted support and interventions. Develop city-specific temperature alerts that account for heat combined with humidity, nighttime temperatures, integrating factors like humid heat, hot nights, and urban infrastructure interactions.

● Strengthen nature-based and systemic interventions: Move beyond piecemeal efforts like tree planting and invest in comprehensive blue-green infrastructure solutions such as green roofs, large-scale greening, the rejuvenation of water bodies and amend urban planning policies, including heat-resilient building codes and labour laws.

● Expand institutional capacities and coordination: Improve collaboration across government agencies, technical partners, and non-state actors such as NGOs and CBOs, enabling year-round planning and integrating heat adaptation into broader governance frameworks.

● Invest in long-term adaptive governance: Build transdisciplinary capacity across sectors and ensure dedicated financing for heat risk management, learning from best practices like cyclone preparedness on India's east coast.

Despite progress, urban heat risk management in India remains reactive and incremental. This has created an adaptation gap, with governance structures and capacities stuck in relief-oriented measures.

While some cities like Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, and Jodhpur show transformative potential in their HAPs, most HAPs lack clear metrics for evaluating their effectiveness in reducing heat-related deaths and stress. This also requires dedicated funding and tracking.

Every summer is a wakeup call for heat preparedness and management. Some Indian cities are already demonstrating change, and we must capitalise on this but to combat the rising heat crisis, and push for transformative action.

This article is authored by Chandni Singh, lead and Divyanshi Vyas, research associate, School of Environment and Sustainability, Indian Institute for Human Settlements.