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A World Bank report states that up to 75 per cent of India’s workforce depends on heat-exposed labour, at times working in potentially life-threatening temperatures. This largely comprises the informal workforce of the country. The report also states that heat-exposed work contributes to nearly half of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Bengaluru, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, is home to approximately 1.4 crore people. It has a large population of informal workers who build the city, keep it moving, and endure heat exposure for long hours while doing so. These are the daily labourers employed for physically intensive work, construction workers, street vendors, domestic helpers and cleaners, workers in small-scale industrial units, delivery staff zipping through the roads, auto, and taxi drivers spending days and nights in metal vehicles, security guards working long hours, and other lakhs of people doing odd and miscellaneous jobs in the city. 38-year-old Venkatachala is one such informal worker.

Venkatachala makes a living by selling flowers on his pushcart. “As the temperatures rise, it becomes increasingly challenging to push my cart. I get tired more easily, and my body aches. Once it gets even hotter, I sweat a lot and consequently feel dizzy and can’t do much,” he says.

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