India’s premier environmental tribunal has stepped in on the country’s escalating heatwave crisis, taking rare self-initiated legal action and demanding climate adaptation plans from the central government and thirteen states.
The National Green Tribunal issued notices this week after a bench led by Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Expert Member Dr Afroz Ahmad took suo motu cognisance of a media report titled “48 Degree Heat 360 Degree Plan.” The tribunal said the report raised “substantial issues” linked to rising temperatures, climate change, and human-induced environmental stress — and that it prima facie pointed to violations of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
What triggered the action
India Meteorological Department data cited in the report showed temperatures reaching 48 degrees Celsius in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district. Large parts of north, west, central, and peninsular India remain under severe heat stress.
The tribunal observed that unlike floods, cyclones, or earthquakes, heatwaves “often go unnoticed despite affecting large geographical areas for prolonged durations.” The bench noted that rising extreme heat now threatens public health, agricultural output, water availability, power demand, and the broader economy.
The NGT drew a sharp distinction between how heat hits cities and villages. Urban areas, it said, trap and retain heat because of dense concrete, shrinking green cover, vehicular pollution, and rising energy consumption — making nights especially dangerous. Rural communities face a different threat: prolonged outdoor exposure during agricultural work, with inadequate cooling infrastructure and little institutional support.
What the tribunal wants
The bench directed respondents to develop both short-term and long-term adaptation strategies. It called for region-specific heat action plans, high-resolution thermal mapping, improved weather forecasting systems, and open-access climate data.
The NGT impleaded the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; the Ministry of Earth Sciences; the Ministry of Jal Shakti; the Department of Science and Technology; the Central Pollution Control Board; and the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh as respondents.
All parties must file affidavits at least one week before the next hearing, scheduled for August 19.
India has recorded some of its most severe heatwaves in recent memory, with scientists warning climate change is making such events more frequent and deadlier. For outdoor workers, farmers, children, the elderly, and those without access to cooling, each degree rise in temperature is not a statistic — it is a survival condition.
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