Heat action plan: Lessons from Ahmedabad

The Heat Action Plan (HAP) Ahmedabad received 11 years ago is now “frayed” around the edges from continual studying. The Plan has gained something of a benchmark status.

Ahmedabad began to consider having a plan in 2010 when it witnessed many heatwave-related deaths. With various stakeholders on board, the municipal corporation brought out the HAP in 2013. The guidelines are revisited every year, and so the first plan has spawned others, some of which are counted as a plan by themselves. Six HAPs are in the public domain, each the result of tweaks carried out in response to changing urban and environmental conditions.

“Every year, starting from February, we review what worked and what did not. Not everything gets done as per plan because of various reasons, but we make sure knowledge gained from new sources is incorporated in the next year’s plan,” says Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, former director, Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar.

The Institute, Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation were key players in building a heat resilience plan.

Since 2015, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has notified more than 17 heatwave-prone states to develop heat protection plans similar to the one in Ahmedabad.

How effective are HAPs?

Dileep Mavalankar remarks that a successful HAP is one that is participatory, involving both civil society and NGOs. “A HAP would not be effective if it lacks a dedicated person to run its programmes and a budget to do so,” says Dileep.

Ahmedabad has had a nodal officer in the rank of deputy health officer to run its HAP. “The best part is that the person is holding that role for 10 years,” he says.

The district’s HAP lays emphasis on public education and community outreach, an early warning system and capacity-building among healthcare professionals.

Lessons from Odisha

Odisha is also said to have taken many proactive measures to reduce deaths resulting from heatstrokes. It is also among the few states, Maharashtra being one of them, that have district-level heat action plans.

The Odisha HAP 2020 proposed strengthening the previous heat action plans based on two main factors. Determining threshold temperature for multiple cities and towns of Odisha; and conducting vulnerability assessment in more cities and designing an intervention, says a report by Integrated Research and Action for Development.

Sharing local data

“India Meteorological Department started providing heat alerts only from 2016, so we took the help of a foreign university that provided the daily local temperature and warnings were accordingly issued through multiple platforms,” says Dileep.

He says mortality analysis helped them to set the threshold.

The Heat Action Plan includes a breakdown of departmental and agency responsibilities during heatwave days, including activities and protocols for different heat alert levels.

The “Cool Roof programme” in Ahmedabad is another initiative that has been adapted. As per the 2019 draft, government buildings, residential population and low-income housing through CSR are motivated to adopt various cooling techniques.

Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, who has been seeking the establishment of a “Department of Environmental Health”, says India can learn from other countries.

“In the United States, Miami has a task force for heat action plan and a heat officer. They do community hearings and surveys,” he says.

It is essential that each heat action plan be tailor-made for local circumstances.