The number on the screen was quite revealing, almost obscene: 48. This week, the highest temperature in the country was recorded in tehsil town Banda, in the southern part of Uttar Pradesh, which few people outside the Hindi heartland would be able to locate on a map. A few hundred kilometres west, Delhi was elbowing its way into 46. When the wind did arrive, it was hot as a hairdryer. The third highest peak demand came from the national grid on Wednesday afternoon with a new record of 265.44 gigawatts well before the calendar hits the traditional June record setting period.

It is the fourth heatwave spell in the National Capital Region (NCR) this year. Four. Numbers are not so surprising anymore. They are taken in, absorbed, like the rising dal price is taken in, like a refilling of the water bottle, a silent calculation of budgets and plans for the outside world, a silent sigh. But it's not the heat that's troubling this tale so much as the rest of it.

The Delhi haze and heat.The Delhi haze and heat.

Delhi's government to its credit, has been announcing in the last few months a more scientific Heat Wave Action Plan for 2026, based on the so-called satellite mapping. The promotional copy is as stale as the many other such announcements over the years. The Thermal Hotspots have been identified as Wazirpur, Jahangirpuri, Khayala, Shastri Park, Bakkarwala, Sawda, Mubarakpur Dabas, Bhalswa, Nand Nagri, Gokulpuri. An alert-up system is in place with 339 health centres in 13 districts, more than 30 hospitals have five-bed ‘Cool rooms', 39 Quick Response Teams, GPS trackable water tankers and a pilot Cool Roof Policy, reflective coating already painted on over 28,674 sq.ft. at Kashmere Gate ISBT. Misting systems are assured at bus stops. ORS sachets should be given out before the school breaks. It is, in theory, to take a break from outdoor activities during the hottest part of the day – from noon to 3 pm – on severe heatwave days. The city's most likely peak demand is expected to exceed 9,000MW, which is a big increase from the 8,442MW recorded last summer.

It is a long list. Whether this is enough to make a city ready for what's in store is a much tougher question.

The Reserve Bank of India has already chalked out a dismal number. Lost labour hours alone may cost up to 4.5 per cent of national GDP by 2030 in a nation where the World Bank estimates about 380 million workers three-quarters of the labour force to work in heat-exposed conditions. By the end of this decade, 34 million employees in India may be impacted by job losses resulting from the effects of heat stress on productivity in the global loss of jobs, which is estimated at 80 million. These are not conceptual. In summer 2019, two economists interviewed almost 400 informal workers (dhobis, rickshaw pullers, food vendors, masons) over the course of a few days as they walked the lanes of Delhi. It was shocking in its simplicity for each degree of increase in the average temperature net daily earnings were reduced by 16 per cent. Earnings were reduced by 19 per cent for every degree increase in the wet bulb, which is a more accurate representation of human thermal stress. On a sweltering afternoon, the average worker earned about 268 rupees, but became less wealthy by more than a hundred on the days of heatwaves. The cost of a kilo of vegetables is $15.95. That's school paper, that's what they use in school. That's the difference between having a warm meal at night and not eating one at night.

Add that to the millions of miles of air-conditioned policy discussions and then also the summer that has just gotten started with a kick in the ass, beginning in March and running long past June, and the man-to-man distance between a policy review and a tar road in Mayapuri becomes the political nub of the season.

Not to forget the impact of the heat on the rest of the economy that doesn't sweat. Sales of air conditioners and coolers are increasing by 30 to 40 per cent and some models are sold out in the market in north India, said the dealers. With that in their next earnings calls, the celebrations will be for the white goods companies. The power sector, on the other hand, is being tested to the breaking point, with the distinction between a record and a black out being only a single tripped transformer. How the heat is already impacting on food production concerns is an indicator of the transmission of worries to household budgets, according to the economics research desk of Bank of Baroda, with vegetable inflation the quickest transmission belt. That's been echoed by Barclays. In the national accounts, none of these items is concerned by the working of the air conditioning in a meeting room at the Secretariat.

The straightforward truth is that plans abound in India. It's not as executed as it should be. More than 250 cities and districts in 23 heat-prone states now have an on-paper Heat Action Plan. A new NRDC study and an independent Down To Earth review said the same thing, albeit in a different way: The documents are improving but the gap between them and implementation is widening. Tamil Nadu and Telangana have declared heatwaves as State Disaster and availed the State Disaster Response Fund funds. The city of Ahmedabad, which was the first in South Asia to introduce a heat plan in 2013, reduced the number of heat-induced deaths from 65 in 2010 to single figures in just a few years by employing simple, yet effective, measures: early warning system and painting roofs, besides the hours of work adjustment for municipal employees. The template exists. Lacking is not so much the white paint to be applied to a tin roof of Seemapuri before the temperature reaches above 45 but before.

A good way to know if any heat plan is good is to ask 3 questions about it. Does the construction worker on the 14th floor of a new tower in Dwarka know that there is a break between 12 pm and 3 pm on that day? If he doesn't, will the foreman lose the contract? Has there been any rupee written off as a penalty? Answer is still no on all three on every city across India, including its capital. The agency has been quietly working on a new percentile-based heat alert system, which will help. But, forecasts are only as valuable as the chain of action that they set in motion.

Then there's another wrinkle that the official discussion–talk seems to avoid: The heat island effect of concrete, glass and exhaust which traps heat at night means that Delhi's exposed colonies are now having tropical nights with minimum temperature not falling below high twenties. There are no "recoveries. Sleep is broken. The heat index (also known as "real feel" temperature) was 48.5 last May in Delhi when on a dry-bulb thermometer, the temperature was 40.8. The wet bulb temperature went over 28.87. The physiological limit for a wet bulb temperature, no matter how fit and how acclimatised a human is, is 35. But we're not there yet. We are also not far removed from it as anybody would like.

So what does a serious response really mean besides the pictures taken during the launch? At least 3 things.

First, money. State Disaster Response Fund rules must recognize heat as the disaster that it is, and provide an appropriate budget line and published accounting trail for each misting system and water ATM. The Centre encouraged states to draw up plans back in 2019. Few have funded those plans with audited funds.

Second, a tough labour law. India's second largest employer is the construction industry, which is largely operated on informal contracts. No advisory is in force between the hours of Noon and Three if no inspector with a power to fine has issued it. The same as fire extinguishers, building bylaws should require shaded rest spots and drinking water and ORS at worksites exceeding a specific size. The cost is insignificant when compared with productivity loss.

Thirdly, the green canopy. The tree cover in Delhi is not increasing but decreasing and each tree that is cut down contributes to the rise of the ambient temperature of its neighbourhood outside any redeveloped market in the Central Delhi. The most expensive air conditioner is a young tree. Nothing that will change the arithmetic that is the satellite thermal hotspot map.

The weekend will see some relief with increase in surface winds and western disturbance in the hills, as forecast by the IMD. The mercury will drop another 10 degrees or so. The press releases will go on. The next one will come in ten days or three weeks or so, and the cycle will repeat. The question is, does Delhi have a plan? It is whether or not some person at some desk in some department will be called to account when the plan, again, doesn't quite get to the street.