As the climate crisis accelerates, India’s cities are on the frontline of one of its most immediate impacts: Extreme heat. With an estimated 590 million people expected to live in dense urban areas by 2030, Indian cities face a mounting heat crisis that threatens health, livelihoods, and basic urban infrastructure. While some cities like Ahmedabad and Bhubaneshwar have made strides by institutionalising Heat Action Plans (HAPs), these measures are mostly reactive and short-term. To truly protect diverse urban populations, cities must shift from incremental solutions to system-wide, transformational approaches. Heat (representational image)(Praful Gangurde /HT Photo) Urban centres suffer more from extreme heat than rural areas due to the “urban heat island” effect, where concrete-heavy infrastructure such as paved roads, tightly packed high-rise apartments with dense populations trap heat, pushing temperatures higher. In India, this effect can exacerbate heat up to 8–10°C in dense built-up areas. The World Bank estimates that cities like Surat, Lucknow and Chennai see higher heat-related deaths every year. In Chennai alone, approximately 2,500 die each year from extreme heat, and about …