Produced by: Manoj Kumar
The capital is on slow roast this week, with temperatures spiking to 45°C. The IMD has raised a yellow alert, but in many slums and job sites, the heat isn’t just uncomfortable—it’s deadly.
When the mercury climbs, the poor fall hardest. Daily wage workers can’t afford to stop, yet working means risking collapse. It's not weather—it's a poverty accelerant.
From masons to mango sellers, heat slashes output and earnings. India’s informal economy, which sustains millions, melts away hour by hour under the scorching sun.
While the wealthy blast ACs, the poor juggle jugs of water and fan themselves with plastic folders. Cooling is a luxury—and the lack of it is an invisible tax on the poor.
Hospitals see spikes in heatstroke cases, but the poor delay care to avoid bills. Many die at home, unnamed, their deaths uncounted in the official climate toll.
Vegetables wilt on roadside stalls. Crops shrivel in fields. For small vendors and farmers, heat doesn’t just ruin produce—it wrecks income and jacks up prices for everyone.
A new trend: “heat loans.” Families borrow for coolers, fans, even ice. What starts as survival quickly becomes unpayable, locking them in a cycle of climate debt.
In sweltering government schools, students nap instead of study. No fans, no power, no future—heat is eroding education before the bell even rings.
By 2050, India could lose nearly 3% of its GDP to heatwaves. That’s not just an economic statistic—it’s millions stuck in poverty, and decades of progress burned away.