Heat action plans need to have financial inclusion as a pillar

It is projected that heat waves will increase six-fold by 2060, with low-income households bearing the highest burden. (Image: AFP/File)

Recent news that heatwaves have claimed more than 100 lives in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has put the spotlight on the rising risks due to climate change. Being a tropical country, India will be impacted earlier than many other regions along three vectors – cyclones, rains, and heat waves. Of these, while mortality associated with cyclones and rains has reduced over the past couple of decades, that associated with heat waves has increased. It is projected that heat waves will increase six-fold by 2060, with low-income households bearing the highest burden. No one can deny the increase in frequency and intensity of heatwaves both in India and globally, and everywhere the underprivileged will bear the brunt of the burden.

This is where financial products that can compensate them for lost wages can help. Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) has introduced an Extreme Heat Insurance product for its members with support from Rockefeller Foundation. This is simply a pilot and if successful will need to be scaled up to help the heat-exposed workers address the climate challenge. Anticipatory cash transfers have been seen to work in Bangladesh to help during the flood season. Since the timing of heat waves is reasonably predictable, an alternative approach may be anticipatory cash transfers to the most vulnerable groups, which will help them prepare well and weather the heat wave without reducing consumption. Such innovations will be important as heat waves intensify in the future.

Rolling Out Heat Act Plans

But the current system is not geared toward enabling the rollout of such solutions. The extent of preparation requires a range of actions including at the policy level, monitoring and reporting of credible data. Heat has no doubt been on the government’s agenda for a few years. The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) published the latest version of the model Heat Action Plan (HAP) in 2019 which lists a number of long and short-term actions. Several states, districts and municipalities have also prepared HAPs though there is no central authority or entity coordinating these plans or acting as a repository. A recent report by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) found that few HAPs take the local context into account and many such plans do not have any legal basis for their authority. Without funding and legal backing, they are at best only statements of intent. Most importantly, only two of the 37 HAPs studied contained vulnerability assessments, and HAPs as a group present generalised solutions and do not identify and target vulnerable segments.

One of the key climate-related challenges for policymakers and government is to integrate hyperlocal climatic factors in the policies and action plans. While heat waves are declared at a metro sub-division level with a temperature threshold, there can be significant variations locally — the difference between the concrete core of a city and its greener periphery can be as much as 20 degrees. Other factors, such as hot nights and humidity, which increase health risks, are typically not considered when declaring heat waves.

Better Data Needed

Thus, weather information needs to be gathered at a much more granular level and used for determining heat-related health risks. This will require a significant upgrade to the data collection infrastructure, especially the use of technologies, such as sensors. Also, it calls for much more localised action, which necessarily requires delegation of authority, devolution of funds and capacity building at local levels.

India also needs better data on heat-related deaths and morbidity. While NDMA has claimed that heat-related deaths had come down from over 2,000 in 2015 to just four in 2020, India Today, a publication, based on an analysis of National Crime Records Bureau data calculates that there were 1,274 heat-related deaths in India in 2019. While the National Action Plan on Heat-Related Illnesses, prepared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, provides guidelines for investigating suspected heat-related deaths, clearly it leaves room for ambiguity.

While there is no data on mortality or morbidity by profession, it is to be expected that workers who have to toil in the open, such as farm workers, head-loaders and construction workers bear the brunt of heat waves. They usually do not have the luxury of skipping a few days of wages, and their refusal to work in intense heat may even cost them their employment/contract.

Interestingly, none of the HAPs analysed by CPR has financial inclusion as a pillar. Heatwaves are just one increasingly debilitating event in the lives of low-income households. After a hot prolonged summer, we now have devastation across Himachal Pradesh and parts of north India due to heavy rainfall, record-breaking in many areas. The impact of the changing climate on incomes and productivity must be integrated into policy. It is time for governments and industry to broaden the conversation on financial inclusion across solutions in the form of benefits transfers and insurance products to deal with climate risks.

Sumita Kale and Pranav Kumar are with Indicus Centre for Financial Inclusion. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.