New Delhi: For Nagma, summer means sleepless nights, lost wages, missed classes for her children and illness. By 8 in the morning, the sun starts beating down on the roof of the one-room house she rents in Sundar Nagri. Located on the fourth floor, the room traps heat throughout the day and remains stifling even at night.Since an air cooler remains out of reach, the family of eight depends on a ceiling fan and chilled water bottles from the refrigerator. During a heat spell in May, Nagma said several family members fell ill while she experienced headaches and episodes of low blood pressure that prevented her from completing the toy packaging work that supports her family. “Sleepless nights leave the children exhausted during the day and unable to concentrate in school. They often miss classes when they are sleep-deprived,” she wrote in her register.Her family is among 40 households that maintained “heat registries”, documenting how heat exposure affected their lives. Since this May, the heat registries have been prepared by people living in low- or middle-income neighbourhoods, including street vendors, waste pickers, domestic helps, women and students.Along with Greenpeace India, these residents Tuesday demanded that National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) declare extreme heat a human rights issue. They asked for adequate funding for ‘heat action plans’, including implementing Sixteenth Finance Commission’s recommendation to notify heatwaves as a nationally recognised disaster. They also submitted their heat registries to NHRC.“Extreme heat doesn’t only affect the health of informal workers. For street vendors, the most significant loss is their work itself. There is less footfall during extreme-heat days, which leads to a loss of income and livelihood,” said Mohit Valecha, national coordinator of Indian Hawkers Alliance. “There are no social security schemes that can compensate informal workers like street vendors for those losses.” In his heat register, Valecha mentioned that he spent Rs 1,455 in May and Rs 3,420 in June on electricity expenses.Abhishek stays with his mother and two sisters in a rented room in Sundar Nagri that has a door leading to a staircase as the only source of ventilation. For security reasons, his family cannot keep the door open for long durations. “The house feels like a closed jar during the summer months. Though there is no respite from the heat in our house, my mother struggles with heat stress at her factory. She works under a single ceiling fan for hours at a thread factory for a salary of Rs 6,000,” he wrote.Aakiz Farooq, senior climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace India, said through these heat registries, citizens were documenting their lived experiences of how extreme heat impacted their health, livelihoods, income, wellbeing, mobility and dignity, often with no meaningful protection. “We urge NHRC to recognise extreme heat as a human rights issue and ensure that govts adequately fund and implement measures that protect those most at risk,” said Farooq.Greenpeace India demanded linking India Meteorological Department’s heatwave warnings to mandatory wage-loss compensation for outdoor and gig workers, converting public parks into heat-resilient community spaces with shade and water access, and scaling up hydration and health interventions in the most heat-vulnerable neighbourhoods.
