Heat Burden on Workers Missing From Noida Labour Protest
Rising global temperatures are rapidly intensifying heat stress for India’s informal sector, which employs over 85% of the workforce
The workers at the centre of the protest were the precise population that Indian field research has most consistently identified as bearing the highest occupational heat burden.
Visual Credits: Pixabay
A recent protest took place in Noida’s industrial belt on 13 April, 2026, where about 45,000 factory workers demanded wage hikes, fixed hours, and overtime pay. The UP government in turn announced an interim minimum wage hike after the protests turned violent on day four.
Among these issues that workers face, there was also an important missing link: heat stress. At the time of the protest, Noida was experiencing 36-39°C, with forecasts reaching as high as 42°C.
The analysis pointed out that the workers at the centre of the protest were the precise population that Indian field research has most consistently identified as bearing the highest occupational heat burden.
Factories Lack Basic Heat Mitigation Measures
A study by HeatWatch and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which surveyed garment workers across Delhi NCR, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat found that about 87% of the workers reported heat-related symptoms like headaches, dizziness, weakness, and muscle cramps in last 12 months and about 70% of them said the heat affected their ability to work.
The study also found that most factories that operated under metal roofs had no equipment to measure temperature or humidity and in some factories, sensors were only activated during buyer visits or compliance inspections. This also meant that heat advisories to 'stay indoors' were effectively meaningless for these populations.
Workers in most factories often skipped breaks to meet production targets that worsened dehydration and fatigue, as per the report.
Heat Reduces Income and Increase Expenditure
The heat reduced income while increasing expenditures of workers affecting their costs and standards of living. It found that the heat burden for workers doesn’t end at the factory gates. Most workers are migrants from the states of UP and Bihar, earning ₹11,000-₹13,500 a month. They live in a shared, densely packed rented accommodation with no air conditioning and return home after 12-hour shifts to nights that are themselves no longer cooling.
Mahesh Palawat, Vice President- Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet Weather, pointing to rising night temperatures, said, “It is becoming a serious health concern because the human body depends on cooler nights to recover from the heat stress of the day. When that recovery is disrupted, it not only increases physical risks such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and cardiovascular strain, but can also affect sleep quality, mental well-being, and overall functioning. We need to include this persistent rise in minimum temperatures in the policy as they are likely to increase in the future due to rise in global temperature.”
Policy Gaps
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (OSHWC), 2020, the same legislation that expanded permissible working hours to 12, does not recognise heat as an explicit occupational hazard. Section 23 leaves heat safety standards to government discretion, not mandatory obligation.
Heatwaves are also not classified as a national disaster that further restricts states’ access to relief funds. A CEEW review that showed that heat action plans, that are now implemented in several states, primarily focused on outdoor exposure and emergency responses, with limited attention to indoor workspaces such as factories.
“Uttar Pradesh's heat action plan recognises workers as vulnerable and directs the employment and labour department to make basic provisions such as water, shade, and ORS available. But these solutions are piece-meal, reactive, and don’t address the challenge of poorly-ventilated industrial and factory spaces where workers are forced to work overtime without access to basic amenities to approach living wage,” said Apekshita Varshney, Founder and Director of Heat Watch.
“We need to move beyond heat action plans to enforceable and financed improvements and strong regulations where labour and employment, public health, and municipal departments work together. Businesses must find newer structures of work that don’t rely on overwork in indecent conditions. In its absence, workers receive nothing: not good wages, not amenities, not a decent quality of life,” she added.