“Heat was unbearable,” says Radha, who lives in the Ignas Park
Gujarat. With heatwaves and ever-rising temperatures in the country, many others like Radha have been suffering without adequate ways to cool down. “With high temperatures come huge electricity bills. There is no respite,” she adds.
As the temperature rose to 42 degrees in June 2024, the city has been bearing the brunt of the heat. “Since our house is at the corner of the slum where it gets particularly warm, we did not know how to cool it down,” she says.
A Financial Express report suggests that “India has seen 16,344 suspected heatstroke cases since 1 March this year, with 486 suspected heatstroke cases on 22 May alone.” Another report in Bloomberg pointed out that in Ahmedabad alone, the city recorded 45 cases of heat strokes last summer with no comprehensive data on heat-related deaths.
While home solutions like dampening the curtains of their entrances and throwing water to cool down the roof worked, they all were temporary fixes.
Taking the situation into careful consideration, an organisation called Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) came up with a simple solution to the slum’s heat woes. If you now look at the roofs of most of these homes in from a bird’s eye view, you will find them all painted in solar reflective white paint so as to cool the indoors.
“MHT representatives came to us and told us about the solar reflective white paint. We felt that it was a reasonable thing to do. After painting our roof white, we noticed a significant improvement in the temperature inside our house. It used to be unbearably hot, but now, it feels much more comfortable,” says Radha.
“While I am at work, my mother stays at home all day, and she also feels much better now,” she adds with a smile.
Bhavna Maheriya, MHT’s programme manager, shares about the living conditions of slum dwellers. “Their main concern at this point is to survive. Even if it is 50 degrees outside and the Government issues warnings of a heatwave, they have to go out and earn their food for the night. Heat action is their last priority,” she says.
The Mahila Housing Trust has helped women in slums bring down the temperatures in their homes.
When the heat is so much, the rooms heat up too, becoming hotter than outside due to lack of proper ventilation, she shares. “If they can’t take care of the heat, it becomes our duty to do it for them. The trust works in different areas and this is one of the initiatives that we have taken up,” she shares.
The project started as a pilot in 2016 when the trust was looking into cheaper and innovative ways of reducing heat. “The organisation has been working in different areas such as pollution, climate change, etc for almost 30 years. In 2010, we started working for efficient energy and helped a lot of rural people in Ahmedabad have legal electricity,” she says.
“Earlier they used to get electricity illegally from poles or from someone else’s connection by paying them a small amount. This was illegal and highly dangerous. However, once the people switched to legal connections with authorised metres, the bills started to flow in. Most of the people complained about high electricity bills,” she says. The MHT team inspected the homes of these people and realised that they were using 100-watt bulbs.
“In a small home with one or two rooms, high bills are not possible. We noticed that the homes did not have proper ventilation due to shared walls. They have the kitchen in the same rooms, which also contributed to increasing the heat inside the home,” she says.
To reduce the heat, people used to run fans and coolers the entire day at full speed, increasing the bill. “This made us realise that changing their bulbs would not solve the problem. We needed a heat action plan,” she says.
The UV reflective paint not only brings down the temperature but also reduces electricity bills due to lesser usage.
Bhavna takes us through the various pilots and schemes it launched before the UV white paint pilot.
“We introduced initiatives which modified their roofs. We introduced a fibre sheet roof, placed in a dome style with a jaali structure for ventilation. This not only improved the ventilation but also reduced the heat. This plan became very popular and we installed it in nearly 500 homes. In 2013, we introduced another pilot called modular roofs. The reduction in temperature was five to six degrees but the product needed a lot of modifications in the existing structure,” she says.
“We also had pilots like thermocol false ceilings and bamboo ceilings too. It was in 2016 that we introduced the rooftop white paint. The paint reduced the temperature by five to six degrees inside the home,” she adds.
Calling it the cool roof technology, she says, “The best thing about this initiative was that the application was very easy. The women could easily source it from us and apply it,” she says. The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan committee also reached out to us to understand how the cool roof technology works. “They included our cool roof technology in their revised plan,” she says.
When the various initiatives are launched, many steps are taken to ensure they benefit the people. “When there are structural changes in the homes of slum dwellers, we give them a 100 percent guarantee that if the technology does not suit them, we will reverse all the changes made to the house,” she adds.
Currently, over 20,000 slum homes in Ahmedabad have benefitted from the organisation’s initiative.
The women in slum areas are given proper induction before a project is implemented in their homes.
“I learned about this white paint and its benefits during a Community Action Group (CAG) meeting supported by the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT). They gave us a poster that had details about the solar reflective white paint. We understood that it helps reduce the heat inside our houses,” she shares.
“Our house doesn’t have proper ventilation. It used to be so hot during the summer that we couldn’t sit inside comfortably. But after we applied the paint on our roof, it feels much better,” says Suman who lived in the Ignas Park slum.
The trust depends on funds and contributions to continue helping the people living in slums, is how you can help them.
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All images credit: Mahila Housing Trust)
As the temperature rose to 42 degrees in June 2024, the city has been bearing the brunt of the heat. “Since our house is at the corner of the slum where it gets particularly warm, we did not know how to cool it down,” she says.
A Financial Express report suggests that “India has seen 16,344 suspected heatstroke cases since 1 March this year, with 486 suspected heatstroke cases on 22 May alone.” Another report in Bloomberg pointed out that in Ahmedabad alone, the city recorded 45 cases of heat strokes last summer with no comprehensive data on heat-related deaths.
While home solutions like dampening the curtains of their entrances and throwing water to cool down the roof worked, they all were temporary fixes.
Taking the situation into careful consideration, an organisation called Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) came up with a simple solution to the slum’s heat woes. If you now look at the roofs of most of these homes in from a bird’s eye view, you will find them all painted in solar reflective white paint so as to cool the indoors.
“MHT representatives came to us and told us about the solar reflective white paint. We felt that it was a reasonable thing to do. After painting our roof white, we noticed a significant improvement in the temperature inside our house. It used to be unbearably hot, but now, it feels much more comfortable,” says Radha.
“While I am at work, my mother stays at home all day, and she also feels much better now,” she adds with a smile.
Helping slum dwellers survive the heatwave
Bhavna Maheriya, MHT’s programme manager, shares about the living conditions of slum dwellers. “Their main concern at this point is to survive. Even if it is 50 degrees outside and the Government issues warnings of a heatwave, they have to go out and earn their food for the night. Heat action is their last priority,” she says.
The Mahila Housing Trust has helped women in slums bring down the temperatures in their homes.
When the heat is so much, the rooms heat up too, becoming hotter than outside due to lack of proper ventilation, she shares. “If they can’t take care of the heat, it becomes our duty to do it for them. The trust works in different areas and this is one of the initiatives that we have taken up,” she shares.
The project started as a pilot in 2016 when the trust was looking into cheaper and innovative ways of reducing heat. “The organisation has been working in different areas such as pollution, climate change, etc for almost 30 years. In 2010, we started working for efficient energy and helped a lot of rural people in Ahmedabad have legal electricity,” she says.
“Earlier they used to get electricity illegally from poles or from someone else’s connection by paying them a small amount. This was illegal and highly dangerous. However, once the people switched to legal connections with authorised metres, the bills started to flow in. Most of the people complained about high electricity bills,” she says. The MHT team inspected the homes of these people and realised that they were using 100-watt bulbs.
“In a small home with one or two rooms, high bills are not possible. We noticed that the homes did not have proper ventilation due to shared walls. They have the kitchen in the same rooms, which also contributed to increasing the heat inside the home,” she says.
To reduce the heat, people used to run fans and coolers the entire day at full speed, increasing the bill. “This made us realise that changing their bulbs would not solve the problem. We needed a heat action plan,” she says.
The UV reflective paint not only brings down the temperature but also reduces electricity bills due to lesser usage.
A ray of relief
Bhavna takes us through the various pilots and schemes it launched before the UV white paint pilot.
“We introduced initiatives which modified their roofs. We introduced a fibre sheet roof, placed in a dome style with a jaali structure for ventilation. This not only improved the ventilation but also reduced the heat. This plan became very popular and we installed it in nearly 500 homes. In 2013, we introduced another pilot called modular roofs. The reduction in temperature was five to six degrees but the product needed a lot of modifications in the existing structure,” she says.
“We also had pilots like thermocol false ceilings and bamboo ceilings too. It was in 2016 that we introduced the rooftop white paint. The paint reduced the temperature by five to six degrees inside the home,” she adds.
Calling it the cool roof technology, she says, “The best thing about this initiative was that the application was very easy. The women could easily source it from us and apply it,” she says. The Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan committee also reached out to us to understand how the cool roof technology works. “They included our cool roof technology in their revised plan,” she says.
When the various initiatives are launched, many steps are taken to ensure they benefit the people. “When there are structural changes in the homes of slum dwellers, we give them a 100 percent guarantee that if the technology does not suit them, we will reverse all the changes made to the house,” she adds.
Currently, over 20,000 slum homes in Ahmedabad have benefitted from the organisation’s initiative.
The women in slum areas are given proper induction before a project is implemented in their homes.
“I learned about this white paint and its benefits during a Community Action Group (CAG) meeting supported by the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT). They gave us a poster that had details about the solar reflective white paint. We understood that it helps reduce the heat inside our houses,” she shares.
“Our house doesn’t have proper ventilation. It used to be so hot during the summer that we couldn’t sit inside comfortably. But after we applied the paint on our roof, it feels much better,” says Suman who lived in the Ignas Park slum.
The trust depends on funds and contributions to continue helping the people living in slums, is how you can help them.
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All images credit: Mahila Housing Trust)