The Indian economy is debilitated by damaged human and animal health, reduced crop yields, droughts, increased pest and disease pressure, and soil degradation
Throughout history, Indian agriculture has consistently been dependent on the unpredictable monsoon, earning it the nickname "a gamble in monsoon." With improved irrigation (e.g., drip, sprinkler irrigation) and high yielding variety (HYV) seeds and fertilisers, the impact of the monsoon on agriculture has reduced.
India’s labour productivity, particularly for outdoor workers in agriculture, construction, and mining, drastically declined because of heat waves. Increased irrigation and air pollution control aggravate heat stress, lowering productivity by 2-4 percent for every degree rise above 27 °C, raising power demand, and exacerbating water scarcity.
The Indian economy is debilitated by damaged human and animal health, reduced crop yields, droughts, increased pest and disease pressure, and soil degradation. Sweltering heat waves also lower the production of animal fodder, reduce animal productivity, raise milk prices, and hurt power grids. Similarly, poultry and fishery are also pounded by deteriorating air quality and rising climate change. Such aspects necessitate effective measures to mitigate heat waves and their consequences.
The inequitable and disproportionate impact of the heat wave requires a sharper focus on
providing succour to the vulnerable population, e.g., mandatory inclusion of wide categories of informal workers in urban areas, inclusion of worker communities and their say in action plans, reformed labour laws and the Labour Codes from the perspective of informal workers, and promoting workers’ rights.
RBI’ Assessment- Macroeconomic Impact and on different regions
According to the RBI’s Report of the Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR), climate change stemming from rising temperatures and transforming patterns of monsoon rainfall could reduce 2.8 percent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and depress living standards of nearly half of its population by 2050. The Report’s scary findings highlighted that the record heat wave in India greatly affected workers, labour migrants, and low-income households. Similarly, a recent report on Climate Transparency chillingly warned that India suffered an income loss of 5.4 percent of GDP, the highest among the G20 nations in 2021. Hence, a broad-spectrum strategy without being oblivious to ground-level realities needs to be swiftly implemented.
Impact of Heatwave
Heat wave in India stems inter-alia from global warming, which leads to long-term increase in Earth’s average temperature due to human activities, viz., burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial activities. Heat wave affected vast regions of the country, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. The heat island effect caused by glass facades of buildings and some other design and habit flaws worsens the situation.
India’s Heat Action Plans (HAPs) - Pathway to the Future
India’s Heat Action Plans (HAPs) with preparatory, adaptive, and responsive elements have not been fully effective because of differential implementation and impact across regions and sectors. This is contextually significant because Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, Director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, found most HAPs were not “built for local context and have an oversimplified view of the hazards.”. “Nuancing and localising the heat hazard definition by including climate projections” requires more automated village- level weather stations, properly “identifying and targeting vulnerable groups,” and a “granular understanding” of densely populated neighbourhoods lacking heat combating appliances. Most HAPs were also underfunded, had weak legal foundations with scant accountability, and were largely opaque.
What is prognostically alarming is that Scientists fear that at least one year in the next half-decade will overshoot the record annual average temperature observed globally in 2023. The dynamics of Indian heat wave projections across regions reveal real and worrisome fault-lines.
Accordingly, the roadmap ahead must formulate and implement disaster management and risk mitigation strategies and hyper-local sequential heat action plans at the city, district, and state levels in conformity with the guidelines of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), restore and build more blue and green infrastructure—water – water-bodies and areas with tree cover, provide water, shade, and rest–eat–leisure spaces, promote workers’ rights in cities and prepare hospitals for all eventualities. There must be closer coordination for access to hydration and cool places, suitable housing, well-conceived heat plans, scientific forecasts, prevention of extensive misery, and mid-course correction, wherever needed.
Mitigating strategies based on granular heat-risk data and local adaptive strategies may apparently seem like a tall order, but an objective assessment of the rapidly worsening ground-realities clearly brooks no delay. Going forward, we have to transform or perish.
Hence, synchronised measures by all stakeholders, including the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and voluntary agencies (VAs), with a sense of urgency are needed to prevent things from slipping from bad to worse. While all is not lost, at least not yet, the task ahead of adroitly managing a climate-changing world’s resilience is difficult but doable. Failure is not an option.
(Dr. Manoranjan Sharma is Chief Economist at Infomerics Ratings.)