As India swelters in the fiercest of heat waves and counts the hours to the monsoon, it is chastening to be told we were warned. In the months leading up to the current peak of the dog days, meteorologists foretold us of a summer that could put previous records in the shade, in a manner of speaking.
In February, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast a hotter-than-normal March-May period with more than the usual number of heatwave days. It also warned of a developing Super El Niño pattern that could make this a long, hot summer without the odd relief shower or two.
Disaster experts pitched in that the expected heatwaves could strain India’s public health systems, water resources and power demand. In March, a study projected enhanced heatwave mortalities across 67 Indian cities.We are there now. The summer of 2026 has been remarkable for the sheer geographical spread of heatwaves.
On May 22, the top 50 hottest cities on the global Air Quality Index platform were all Indian. No less than 19 states and union territories and well over 100 cities have recorded formal heatwave to severe heatwave conditions, according to IMD. We have had the oddity of Jammu in the north and Telangana in the south enduring extreme temperatures at the same time.
On Wednesday, Banda in Uttar Pradesh recorded 48.2°C, the highest temperature recorded there in 75 years.As for heat stroke and heat wave fatalities, monitoring them is not an exact science, but we have had a fair few this year. Nearly 25,000 heatstroke cases have been reported since March 1 — more than 19,000 in May alone — with 56 confirmed deaths, including 16 in Telangana, where the situation has been described as “unprecedented”.
Experts say India’s heatwave mortalities have conventionally been undercounted, and officials have become even more wary since the National Crime Records Bureau triggered an outcry by reporting 1,800 deaths in 2024.This year, the situation became serious enough for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pitch in with an advisory? on Wednesday.
His advice — stay hydrated, offer a glass of water to others — is basic, but useful all the same. Local authorities don’t hasten to action on heat waves until they are reminded of their priorities from on high.It is because of this top-down administrative culture that India’s approach to heatwaves tends to be short-term rather than long-term and mitigating rather than preventive.
According to a study of 11 Indian cities published by Delhi-based NGO Sustainable Futures Collaborative, action on heatwave exigencies is driven by express orders received from higher government rather than the heat action plans (HAPs) available to local administrations since 2013. This results in short-term actions and emergency responses, such as providing drinking water and changing work schedules.
Longer-term measures like forcing employers to provide occupational cooling for heat-exposed workers, heat island mapping, increasing green cover and giving local officials deep access to weather data are completely absent.Summer heatwaves have now become a recurring annual phenomenon and have established a continuum with monsoon flooding. In our cities, heatwaves segue every year into urban flooding, like day leads to night, and local administrations tend to deal with both similarly: action begins only after the event happens. That approach needs to change.