For the past two years, 32-year-old Asmira has worked as a domestic worker in North India’s fast-growing financial and technology hub, Gurgaon. As a single mother who migrated from the eastern state of West Bengal with her two children in 2022, Asmira works tirelessly to look after her kids. Working six days a week, she visits several households to do chores like cooking and cleaning.
With India experiencing fatally hotter weather this summer and India’s national capital Delhi and its neighboring regions including Gurgaon registering record temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius, Asmira says her work has become excruciating and dangerous in the scorching heat.
Standing hours in front of the cooking gas, which emits even more heat, often makes it challenging for her to breathe. “I wake up at 5 o’clock, prepare lunch for my children, clean the house, and then go to work. I walk at least 7 kilometers a day in this deadly heat,” she told The Contrapuntal.
“Usually the Air Conditioners are in the personal rooms of the tenants. Workers like me cannot feel the fans’ cooling,” she said, “The apartments are poorly ventilated and you do not have windows to get any air. These days I am drenched in sweat. Now I feel dizziness all day, and have rashes all over my body due to the heat,” she said.
Seeing a doctor is challenging for workers like Asmira as they are poorly paid in India. “At times people also pay me as per their wish. Sometimes they do not even pay on time,” she said.
Although now there is a bit of respite from the intense heat, the world’s most populous nation is still tackling the extreme weather conditions. It experienced 536 heatwave days this summer, the highest in 14 years, with the northwestern region recording its warmest June since 1901, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Reports suggest that the summer of 2024 in India has claimed over 110 lives and affected the health of thousands amid a prolonged heatwave and severe floods. Over 40,000 suspected heat stroke cases have been reported due to the relentless heat.
The National Alliance of People’s Movements, a civil rights organization, has demanded that this year’s extreme heat be declared a disaster under India’s Disaster Management Act of 2005.
For informal workers like Asmira, the extreme weather makes their lives more precarious, as their jobs are often physically demanding, and require work for extended hours, with poor working conditions, limited healthcare accessibility, and insurance coverage.
Susceptible Informal workers
The majority of India’s urban workers operate in the informal sector and often experience limited job security, irregular incomes, lack of social protection, and unsafe environments, and are exposed to economic vulnerabilities. India’s labor landscape is predominantly characterized by informal employment, encompassing a remarkable majority of India’s workforce. 92% of women and 90% of men are actively engaged in informal labor in India, collectively constituting more than 90% of India’s workforce.
The extremely hot weather has exacerbated their situation as informal work frequently demands physical labor in challenging environmental conditions, rendering these workers more susceptible to heat stress.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), it is projected that India will experience a reduction of approximately 5.8% in its overall labor hours by 2030 as a result of heat and humidity. This decline in labor hours poses significant challenges for India, particularly given that about 90% of the workforce operates in the informal sector, with many engaged in physically demanding roles.
Workers operating in this sector are self-employed or employed in small unregistered enterprises, temporary or seasonal workers, domestic workers, and those engaged in casual labor without formal contracts or social security benefits.
Twenty-four-year-old Naina* (name changed) works as an inbound worker in Gurgaon and also narrates that it has been a “nightmare” this summer for her to meet the target at her workplace.
“I load at around 150 items in an hour but in that hour it’s impossible to take a break or go to the washroom even if you are on your periods or drink water in this scorching heat,” she told The Contrapuntal.
Naina, who is paid a meager sum of 119$ a month, recounted that she had to endure 10-hour shifts standing during a heatwave, with temperatures in India soaring above 35 degrees Celsius.
On June 14, a few Indian publications reported that some employees working in the multinational e-commerce platform Amazon India in Haryana’s Manesar were made to take an oath that they would not take toilet and water breaks until their targets were met. It prompted India’s Human Rights Commission to call on the labor ministry to intervene.
Amazon operates nearly 50 fulfillment centers (warehouses) in India, spanning across 16 states, with at least four located in the Delhi-NCR region. The warehouse in Manesar, where the complaints have arisen, employs approximately 2,000 workers across various shifts.
Naina said that her colleagues at Amazon worked in extreme heat conditions out of fear of losing their livelihoods. In June, she witnessed how one of her female co-workers’ health deteriorated as a result of prolonged exposure to heat.
Workers do not have sufficient seating for resting. Despite fans and large coolers in the warehouse, the cooling does not reach them. “Workers shared evidence with us where the temperature was higher than 32º C and imagine they had to work in that condition for a 10-hour shift,” said Dharmendra Kumar, Amazon India Workers Association Convenor.
Kumar said that the workers are given low wages and have to meet high targets.
“The targets are really brutal. Workers have formal breaks of 30 mins for tea and 30 for lunch. There are no mandatory breaks. And this recent incident in Manesar Haryana was very alarming,” he said.
Although the company has said that the claims raised by the workers were being “investigated,” this has raised concerns about an oppressive work atmosphere for these workers in India.
Effect on the vulnerable
In a 2024 report on “The Human Consequences of Rising Temperatures,” the Palakiya Foundation – a non-profit organization, documented the impact of extreme heat on health and economic loss. The report is based out of Delhi and contains study and case studies from across North India.
“It is important that climate adaptation and mitigation measures are adopted, considering the loss and damage caused due to extreme heat. Considering the rise in global temperatures, it is the need of the hour to protect the lives of outdoor and daily wage workers through policy-level and local-level interventions,” said Rohin Kumar, director of Palakiya Foundation.
Experts in the Palakiya Foundation say that India’s existing Heat Action Plans (HAPs) often fail to notice local contexts and competently address vulnerable populations.
The Centre for Policy and Research (CPR) report says that in India, “most heat action plans are not built for local contexts,” that is, they generally focus on dry extreme heat and ignore the threats posed by humid heat and warm nights.
Experts demand that the response to tackle heat waves must be focused on advancing preparedness, improving heat interventions, and investments in vulnerability and risk management assessments.
“Heat Action Plans (HAPs) must have targeted interventions to protect vulnerable populations and incentives for outdoor workers must be prioritized as they lose productivity during extreme weather, more so in the summers during heatwaves. We also urge the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to develop localized forecasting systems tailored to the extremities of weather and the needs of diverse localities,” Kumar said.
India, the world’s most populous country and one of the world’s largest emitters of planet-heating gases, is among the most vulnerable to climate impacts. A report by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found that the country experienced extreme weather on nearly 90% of the days last year.
