A Heat Action Plan (HAP) is a city- or state-level framework that maps a locality's heat risk and lays out coordinated steps — early warning, public communication, healthcare preparedness and long-term heat-reduction measures — to prevent illness and death during heatwaves.

Basic Details

  • Launched and implemented by: First developed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation with public-health partners; scaled nationally by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which coordinates with State Disaster Management Authorities, districts and cities.
  • Launched in: 2013, with Ahmedabad's plan — India's and South Asia's first HAP; NDMA issued national guidelines for states and cities to prepare their own HAPs from 2016 onward.
  • Beneficiaries: Urban and rural populations in heatwave-prone States, particularly outdoor and informal workers, the elderly, children and people with chronic illness.
  • Type: A non-statutory planning framework prepared by each State Disaster Management Authority, district or city — not a centrally-funded scheme with a fixed outlay.

Aim and Objectives

  • To reduce heat-related illness and death by giving communities, health systems and administrations advance warning of extreme heat.
  • To build coordination across health, disaster management, municipal and meteorological departments before a heatwave hits.
  • To identify and protect the most heat-vulnerable groups, such as outdoor and informal workers, in a given locality.

Key Features

  • Early Warning System: A colour-coded alert system, typically issued up to five days ahead of a heatwave, that triggers coordinated action across agencies.
  • Public Awareness: Community outreach — pamphlets, billboards, radio and social media in local languages — plus targeted guidance for heat-exposed workers such as traffic police and street vendors.
  • Capacity Building: Training for health administrators and frontline health workers to recognise, diagnose and treat heat-related illness.
  • Long-Term Heat Mitigation: Structural measures such as reflective or "cool" roofing, tree cover and shaded public spaces to lower ambient temperatures.
  • Risk Mapping: A locality-specific vulnerability assessment that identifies heat hotspots and at-risk populations, forming the base document a plan is built on.

Significance

  • Proven Impact: Ahmedabad's HAP, the model for India's approach, is credited with reducing heat-related mortality after its 2013 launch.
  • Linked to Disaster Finance: Central guidance requires a risk and vulnerability assessment — the core of a HAP — before a State can access mitigation funding for heat under the State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF).
  • Coverage Gap: As of 2026, only about 300 cities and districts across 23 heatwave-prone States have a HAP in place, leaving roughly 4,800 urban local bodies and 800 districts without one.