Making Delhi Heat-Resilient: A roadmap with the focus on vulnerable groups

Over 70 per cent of Delhi’s area is persistently heat-stressed, a condition that has been worsened by a shrinking of the city’s green-blue cover. Current actions to contain the crisis are proving to be insufficient because of a lack of a targeted resilience strategy for highly vulnerable groups such as construction workers, street vendors, informal settlement dwellers, children etc. 

 

As the city comes face to face with another searing summer, we bring you a workable dual-strategy roadmap through this exhaustive analysis. On one hand, Delhi should begin implementing a series of year-round, city-wide actions such as mandating thermally efficient roofs and utilising better heat indicators. On the other, it should enforce focused interventions for exposed populations including mandatory cooling breaks, staggered work timings and dedicated fiscal support during heat emergencies.