Delhi government to come up with flood, heatwave action plan

On Friday, the Union environment ministry informed the National Green Tribunal that the Delhi government has been advised to incorporate a heatwave action plan in its SAPCC. In 2013, Ahmedabad was one of the first Indian cities to have come up with such a plan.

The Delhi government is coming up with action plans to minimise the impact of extreme weather conditions such as heatwaves and floods, officials said. These plans, however, can’t be enforced this summer as the government would take at least a year to prepare them.

The entire national capital region falls under the core heatwave zone of India. (Sonu Mehta/HT File PHOTO)

Senior Delhi government officials said the heatwave and flood action plan would include both short-term and long-term measures to increase the level of preparedness so health impact on vulnerable populations could be minimised. These plans would be incorporated in the larger State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC), officials said.

On Friday, the Union environment ministry informed the National Green Tribunal that the Delhi government has been advised to incorporate a heatwave action plan in its SAPCC. In 2013, Ahmedabad was one of the first Indian cities to have come up with such a plan.

Hindustan Times had, on January 11, reported that eight years after it started laying out an action plan to combat climate change, the Delhi government finally submitted it to the Union ministry of environment and forest in the first week of January.

The national capital is now in the process of revising its SAPCC. The revised plan, likely to be submitted by 2020, would include the targets outlined in the Nationally Determined Contributions—announced by India in the 2015 Conference of Parties (CoP) meeting in Paris, which dealt with ways to fight climate change.

“Delhi is vulnerable to two climate-change related extreme weather events—heatwaves and floods. Some inputs on these two events have already been included in the base-SACPCC, which was submitted...in January this year...A more comprehensive action plan on heatwave and flood would be incorporated in the revised plan, which is likely to be submitted in 2020,” said a senior officer of Delhi environment department who is involved in drafting the action plan.

The entire national capital region falls under the core heatwave zone of India.