BENGALURU: The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) announced the launch of heat-health protocol for the city, which will serve as operational, actionable documents designed to guide specific stakeholders like frontline workers, health facility staff and department officials through precise steps they must take before, during and after a heat event.
“Bengaluru’s heat risk is rising rapidly. The city’s mean air temperature has increased by nearly 0.5°C per decade over the past ten years, with parts of the city recording temperatures near 40°C in April 2024,” the GBA said on Thursday.
Positioning heat adaptation not solely as an emergency response, but a long-term resilience and equity strategy, the heat-health protocols developed in collaboration with C40 Cities, Sensing Local, Hasirudala and Dr Santu Ghosh, Associate Professor, St John’s Medical College, aim to strengthen Bengaluru’s capacity to respond to intensifying climate extremes while advancing inclusive, climate-resilient urban development.
The protocol identifies 417 government health-response facilities across Bengaluru, including 162 Indira Canteens as immediate cooling centres, 108 Namma Clinics, 140 Urban Primary Health Centres and 7 referral hospitals, the GBA release added.
GBA Chief Commissioner Maheshwar Rao said, “Extreme heat is increasingly a public health and governance concern for Bengaluru. The priority is to ensure that we are prepared to act before heat events occur, that our health and civic systems are able to respond effectively when they do and that the lessons from each season inform our preparedness going forward.”
“The protocol brings that approach together across the city’s institutions and provide an important foundation for a more systematic response to heat. The protocol will be instated in all five city corporations and all officials will be ready prior to the next heat season. Some initiatives undertaken in BNCC (North City) will also be evaluated and scaled up throughout the city”, he added.
North City Corporation Commissioner Pommala Sunil Kumar said, “Extreme heat is no longer a future challenge but is already making cities hotter, less healthy and harder to live in. Through the heat-health protocols, Bengaluru has taken a decisive step towards building long-term heat resilience along with demonstrating coordinated multi-layered action and commitment.” “We are keen on scaling up solutions piloted in BNCC across the city. Along with the support of the disaster management department, we will evaluate installing new weather monitoring stations in hotspot areas in BNCC that can assist with forecasting and data collection,” he said.
Naim Keruwala, Regional Director, C40 Cities, South and West Asia, said, “With the launch of the heat-health protocol, Bengaluru, a C40 city since 2017, has set an innovative path towards bold, evidence-based climate leadership.”
The initiative not only institutionalises early warning systems, community preparedness and coordinated public health response but also embeds heat resilience into the governance structure of the city. The protocol demonstrates actions that are particularly resonant to the Global South, which is home to cities with the highest climate risk, Keruwala added.