Of ₹8.57 lakh crore tracked across 130 government schemes, around 10% has potential to directly address heat related risks and impacts, highlighting a significant opportunity to strengthen heat resilience through public spending.

New Delhi, June 15, 2025 — As heatwaves grow deadlier and more frequent across India, a new report Standing the Heat: An Analysis of Heatwave Financing in India’s Union Budget reveals that around 10% of ₹8.57 lakh crore tracked across 130 government schemes has the potential to directly address heat-related risks and impacts, revealing a major gap in dedicated heat finance.

The report is jointly produced by Greenpeace India, the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), and BARC Trust, analyses last seven years of Union Budget data to map how public finance is and isn’t directed toward India’s rising heat risk.

The report noted that across FY 2020–21 to FY 2026–27, only 27 out of 130 tracked schemes could be directly relevant to heat-related risks and impacts, addressing vulnerabilities through labour protection, health services, crop insurance, and social protection. Several have received little or no funding over multiple years.

Heatwave response in India is currently scattered across the Ministries of Labour, Health, Agriculture, Rural Development, and Urban Development, without a coordinated national framework. There is also no standalone disaster classification for heatwaves that would unlock dedicated state-level funding. At present, only 11 states formally recognise heatwaves as a state-specific disaster.

The report also finds that the Ministry of Health has no dedicated scheme for heat emergency preparedness or mitigation while the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC)—India’s nodal climate body—has zero dedicated heat-targeted schemes. All eight of its heat-relevant schemes contribute only indirectly, through broader environmental and adaptation programmes. 

“While tracing the demands and budget allocations, it appears that ‘heat’ is everyone’s problem but no one’s priority,” said Raman VR, Executive Director of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA). “Most of the budget allocations are indirect and spread so thinly across ministries that holding anyone accountable for heat-related actions becomes nearly impossible and needs critical changes,” he added.

During the report launch, community members maintaining the Heat Registry, a first of its kind community maintained handwritten heat evidence initiative, shared how extreme heat is reshaping their daily lives, work, health, and wellbeing.

“We can’t escape heat anymore. The heat has changed how we work, travel, rest, sleep and interact with each other. The government must act to protect our work and health,” said Mohit Valecha, who is maintaining the Heat Registry. 

“Today’s heat is largely driven by historical and ongoing emissions from major fossil fuel producers and high-emitting economies. Governments must urgently explore the full potential of existing public finance to address extreme heat, and apply the polluter pays principle to ensure that major emitters are held accountable for the climate and heat impacts they are driving,” Aakiz Farooq, Campaigner at Greenpeace India.  

“The heatwave must be designated as a nationally notified disaster as recommended by the 16th Finance Commission. There is an urgent need to have a scheme specifically addressing the heat crisis, which is becoming more and more deadly every year. There is also a need to give greater autonomy to the local bodies enabling them to tackle heat and other disasters,” said Nesar Ahnad, Director, Budget Analysis and Research Centre Trust.

He added, “Additionally, the glaring gap between allocations and actual expenditure of the heat related schemes (direct and indirect) during the year 2024-25 for which we have data is a cause of concern , highlighting the implementation bottlenecks.”

The report calls on the government to formally classify heatwaves as a national disaster under the Disaster Management Act, which the 16th Finance Commission has already recommended so it  would unlock dedicated funding through National and State Disaster Response Funds. It also urges the creation of a cross-ministerial governance framework with clear roles, dedicated allocations, and accountability mechanisms across the 16 departments currently involved in heat action.

The report recommends strengthening social protection for informal and outdoor workers through heat-risk insurance and income-loss compensation, empowering local bodies to deploy funds under Heat Action Plans without bureaucratic delays, and investing in community cooling infrastructure like shaded rest areas, cooling centres and drinking water stations in heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods. It also calls for progressive environmental taxation on large corporate polluters to generate revenues for long-term heat resilience.

For media queries, contact:

Nibedita Saha: [email protected]     

Aakiz Farooq: [email protected]g

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Some of the key findings are: 

  • Of the Rs 8.57 lakh crore tracked across 130 schemes in FY 2026–27, around 10% is allocated to schemes that could be directly relevant to heat-related risks and impacts, while the remaining expenditure is channelled through broader sectoral programmes that contribute to heat resilience indirectly.
  • The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC)—India’s nodal climate body—has zero dedicated heat-targeted schemes. All eight of its heat-relevant schemes contribute only indirectly, through broader environmental and adaptation programmes. 
  • Across FY 2020–21 to FY 2026–27, only 27 out of 130 tracked schemes could be classified as directly relevant to heat-related risks and impacts — explicitly addressing vulnerabilities through labour protection, health services, crop insurance, and social protection. Several have received little or no funding over multiple years.
  • The Ministry of Labour and Employment’s existing schemes present a major opportunity to strengthen worker heat resilience, yet the lack of dedicated heat protection measures and targeted funding leaves significant gaps in safeguarding heat-exposed workers. 
  • DAY-NULM, the only scheme protecting urban informal workers including street vendors, rag pickers, the homeless has been effectively shut down, falling from ₹816 crore in 2020-21 to zero by 2025-26.
  • The Ministry of Science and Technology received zero allocation in both its  heat-relevant schemes from 2025-26 onwards, crippling heat research and early warning innovation.
  • The Ministry of Health has no dedicated scheme for heat emergency preparedness or mitigation. 
  • The Health Ministry’s disaster preparedness scheme was budgeted at ₹94 crore in 2024-25 but only ₹14.92 crore was actually spent — a 15.9% utilisation rate.
  • India must adopt a gender-responsive approach to heat financing, with dedicated budget lines that explicitly cover women and gender-vulnerable groups in adaptation, social protection, water access and livelihood support. Current heat financing remains fragmented and fails to reach informal women workers and caregivers who face disproportionate heat vulnerability.