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The productivity crisis is no longer a theoretical risk; it is a mechanical and biological reality crippling India’s industrial heartlands

India is currently winning the global trade shuffle. As political instability rocks traditional hubs such as Bangladesh, international buyers are pivoting toward Indian textile clusters. But as factories in Tiruppur and Bengaluru take on these surge orders, they are walking into a thermodynamic crisis they haven’t budgeted for.

The crisis is personal before it is industrial. A textile worker in Tamil Nadu loses 50% of her work capacity on a 40°C afternoon; and as she does not have any sick leaves or cooling breaks, she also loses 50% of her day’s wages. She absorbs the cost of a warming planet so that global supply chains remain ‘efficient.’ However, the biology of labour is hitting a wall, and India’s textile industry is quietly cracking under the weight.

The crisis of productivity

Between 2001 and 2020, India lost an estimated 259 billion labour hours annually due to heat stress, a productivity haemorrhage exceeding $600 billion each year. In 2024 alone, that loss spiked to as high as 247 billion hours.

The productivity crisis is no longer a theoretical risk; it is a mechanical and biological reality crippling India’s industrial heartlands. In the manufacturing hubs of Palghar, Maharashtra, factory owners report production capacity dropping by up to 50% as extreme heat triggers hazardous conditions that jeopardise both man and machine. Intense temperatures often restrict operations to just four hours daily, as heat becomes unbearable for the workforce. It also increases the likelihood of workplace injuries and serious health conditions, including heatstroke and dehydration. Industrial equipment, designed for more temperate baselines, frequently overheat, leading to sudden operational shutdowns and technical failures that derail tight production schedules. This physical collapse of the shop floor is mirrored in Karnataka’s textile factories, where, indoor temperatures routinely exceed 35-40°C, far above the permitted threshold of 30°C. At these extremes, the “human engine” throttles down as a matter of survival. International studies confirm that at 33-34°C, a worker’s capacity is effectively halved.

As per research published in the Journal of Political Economy in 2021, annual output falls by 2% per degree Celsius. On individual hot days, the decline reaches 4%. For India’s textile industry, which employs 45 million people and controls 39% of global cotton cultivation, this crisis has led to operational collapse.

The supply chain trap

Global brands impose strict delivery deadlines and heavy financial penalties for delays. Yet, workers cannot be pushed beyond physiological limits. Thus, factory managers face an impossible choice: ignore worker collapse to meet a shipment, or face financial ruin. As orders shift to India due to regional and political instability, hubs such as Tiruppur are being crushed by a “thermodynamic bottleneck” where surge orders collide with record-breaking heat. This creates a regressive tax on the poor, disguised as a weather problem. While global brands insulate themselves by diversifying sourcing — shifting orders to Vietnam or Mexico — local factory owners lack the bargaining power to renegotiate terms and the burden is pushed downward. Ultimately, the cost is absorbed by the millions of informal workers who have no safety net; when a factory floor becomes a furnace, they don’t just lose productivity, they lose their daily wages. History has shown that when disruption strikes, workers pay the price; for example, during COVID-19, brands cancelled $2.8 billion worth of orders from Bangladesh in March 2020 alone, affecting approximately 1.2 million workers.

By 2030, India is projected to lose 5.8% of its daily working hours to extreme heat, the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs. The supply chain will not break gradually; it will break when orders simply cannot be met because the human element has reached its thermal limit.

The way forward

India has a choice. It can either continue to externalise the cost of a warming planet onto workers, or the country can systematically transit to a climate-smart supply chain. This requires action on five fronts: first, policymakers must recognise heat stress as a supply chain risk and integrate climate-heat projections into industrial policy and trade agreements. Second, industrial clusters must adopt mandatory heat-action plans with enforceable temperature thresholds, cooling breaks, and worker health assessments. Third, financing mechanisms must be reformed. Banks must incorporate climate risk into loan assessments, and governments must offer concessional credit lines supporting investments in cooling systems, water management, and heat-resilient technologies. Fourth, labour protection codes must be strengthened to address heat stress explicitly. Workers must have guaranteed access to clean drinking water, and shaded rest areas. Fifth, innovation must be driven through targeted R&D grants for wearable cooling technologies, heat-tolerant cotton varieties, and energy-efficient manufacturing processes. And finally, international buyers must bear part of the adaptation cost, through fairer pricing and longer lead times. For decades, the global fashion industry has operated on a convenient lie: that the ‘cost of production’ is a static number on a spreadsheet. This number was artificially deflated by a climate we took for granted. The physics of thermoregulation will not bend to profit margins. If heat stress remains invisible in boardrooms, India’s workers will pay in lost wages and shortened lives.

Sreoshi Banerjee is a postdoctoral researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Raktimava Bose is consultant at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Views expressed are personal.

In a warming world, the value of irrigation lies not only in what it produces, but in the uncertainty it removes.

In a canal-irrigated village in eastern India, farmers increasingly speak not just about yields, but about certainty. “Earlier, we waited for rain,” one cultivator observed. “Now we plan.” That shift—from dependence on rainfall to the ability to plan production—captures a deeper transformation underway in Indian agriculture. As climate change makes monsoons more erratic, dry spells longer and extreme events more frequent, irrigation is no longer merely a tool for boosting agricultural output. It is quietly emerging as a form of climate infrastructure.

For decades, irrigation in India has been evaluated through a narrow lens: how many hectares were brought under assured water and how much crop output increased. But in a warming world, the more relevant question is not just how much irrigation produces, but how much risk it absorbs. Climate change is fundamentally altering the nature of agricultural risk—less about average rainfall and more about its unpredictability. In this context, irrigation’s primary value lies in stabilising incomes and reducing vulnerability.

Evidence from a large field-based assessment of major irrigation projects across 20 states by NCAER reinforces this shift in perspective. Households in canal-irrigated command areas earn, on average, significantly higher incomes than comparable households in nearby non-command villages, even after accounting for observable differences. More importantly, their incomes are less volatile. This is not simply a story of higher yields. It reflects a broader transformation: farmers diversify into higher-value crops, invest more confidently in inputs, expand into allied activities such as livestock, and rely less on costly informal credit. Irrigation, in effect, converts uncertain rainfall into predictable production—and predictability is what underpins resilience.

What is often missed in conventional analysis is that a substantial share of irrigation’s benefits arises beyond the farm. Across projects, indirect gains account for roughly 30-35 per cent of total benefits—yet these are rarely captured in formal appraisal frameworks. These gains manifest in multiple ways. In drought-prone regions, seasonal migration is often a distress response to crop failure. In irrigated areas, this pressure eases: mobility becomes more of a choice than a compulsion. At the household level, improved water access reduces the time women spend collecting water, allowing greater participation in income-generating activities or community institutions. When income volatility declines, families are also better able to keep children in school, reinforcing long-term adaptive capacity.

These are not incidental spillovers; they are central to how rural economies adapt to climate stress. Irrigation does not merely increase production—it reorganises the rural economy by stabilising expectations and enabling longer-term decision-making.

Yet these benefits are far from uniform. Within command areas, access to water is often uneven, with tail-end farmers and marginal households receiving less reliable supply. This unevenness points to a critical insight: irrigation outcomes depend as much on governance as on infrastructure. Where water distribution is predictable, institutions are responsive and maintenance systems are functional, benefits are broad-based. Where these conditions are weak, gains remain concentrated and inequalities persist.

The environmental dimension further complicates the picture. Canal irrigation interacts closely with groundwater systems and local ecology. In some regions, it contributes to groundwater recharge and improved vegetation cover. In others, it coexists with over-extraction or leads to waterlogging and soil degradation. Similarly, while improved water access can enhance health and sanitation outcomes, poorly managed systems can increase risks of water-borne and vector-borne diseases. Irrigation, therefore, is not inherently climate-positive; its long-term impact depends on how it is designed and managed.

There are also emerging examples of irrigation infrastructure enabling economic activities beyond agriculture. In some project areas, reservoirs have supported tourism and related services, generating additional income streams for local communities. While such outcomes are context-specific, they highlight a broader point: water infrastructure can act as a catalyst for diversified rural economies, with effects that extend well beyond crop production.

All of this has important implications for how irrigation is valued and governed. If a significant share of its benefits lies in reducing risk, stabilising incomes, supporting human capital and enabling non-farm activities, then conventional metrics based solely on agricultural output underestimate its true contribution. At the same time, the variability in outcomes across projects underscores that infrastructure investments alone are insufficient. Without effective institutions, equitable water distribution, groundwater regulation and ecological safeguards, irrigation can create new forms of stress even as it alleviates others.

India’s irrigation systems were originally built to secure food production. That objective remains important. But in today’s climate context, their role is expanding. By reducing dependence on erratic rainfall, irrigation cushions rural economies against shocks. By lowering distress migration, it stabilises communities. By saving time and enabling diversification, it strengthens household resilience. And by supporting continuity in education and livelihoods, it builds the foundations of long-term adaptation.

In a warming world, the value of irrigation lies not only in what it produces, but in the uncertainty it removes. Canals are no longer just conduits of water—they are instruments of stability. And in an era defined by climate volatility, stability may well be the most critical resource rural India can have.

Saurabh Bandyopadhyay, Pradip Biswas, Laxmi Joshi, Charu Jain, Kushagra Thakral and Cheruvu Bharadwaja work with NCAER. Views are personal.

Recent reports suggest the central government may be considering a way around the delimitation deadlock on women’s reservation. The proposal, if it advances, would expand the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats, with 273 of the new seats reserved for women and allocated using 2011 Census data rather than waiting for a fresh Census. If that happens, it would mark the biggest change in India’s representative structure since universal adult franchise.

That national discussion acquires urgency as five states — West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry — go to the polls in April 2026. Together, they account for 824 assembly seats and more than 17 crore voters. The contradiction is plain. Many of the schemes dominating these elections — free rations, cooking gas, housing support — are targeted and marketed at women. But women remain largely missing from the candidate lists of the parties making those promises.

At the birth of the republic, Indian women received equal voting rights immediately and unconditionally. More than seven decades later, the right to vote has still not translated into the right to govern. If past trends hold, fewer than one in ten of those 824 seats will be contested by a woman.

State assembly representation remains the real deficit

This matters because state assemblies decide the issues that shape daily life most directly: schools, hospitals, ration shops and welfare delivery. Yet women occupy just 9 per cent of seats across India’s state assemblies. The problem is not electoral participation. Women now vote in numbers comparable to, and often higher than, men in many states. The gap lies elsewhere: in access to candidature, controlled by party selection committees.

Among the five poll-bound states and Union territory, West Bengal performs best, with 46 women in a 294-member assembly, or 16 per cent. Assam has 7 women in a 126-member House, around 11 per cent. Puducherry has 1 in 30. Tamil Nadu has 12 in 234, and Kerala 7 in 140 — both around 5 per cent.

Kerala is the sharpest example of the disconnect. It routinely leads India on women’s literacy, health outcomes and social development. Women hold more than half the seats in local bodies. Yet the state assembly has only 7 women members. Tamil Nadu has produced two women chief ministers, but women have averaged less than 5 per cent of MLAs since 1967. West Bengal does better in part because the Trinamool Congress has shown greater willingness to field women in winnable seats. The presence of prominent women leaders, by itself, does not widen legislative inclusion.

Selection is where women’s reservation is blocked

The evidence is clear about where the barrier lies. ADR analysis of recent elections found that 1,698 of 4,123 assembly constituencies, or 41 per cent, had no woman candidate at all. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 154 of 543 seats had no female candidate from any major party. The constraint is not a lack of qualified women. It is party gatekeeping. Candidate selection remains a rationed resource, and women continue to be pushed to the back of the line.

That is what makes the current moment politically revealing. The Constitution’s 106th Amendment, passed in September 2023 as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, mandates one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. But implementation was deferred until after a fresh Census and delimitation. Celebration came first; representation did not. The Lok Sabha that passed the amendment had 14.4 per cent women. The present Lok Sabha has 13.4 per cent.

Against that backdrop, the reported plan to use 2011 Census data matters because it would remove the procedural alibi that has kept the law frozen since passage.

Women’s reservation: April 2026 elections will test intent

The reported proposal to reserve 273 seats in an expanded Lok Sabha may hasten implementation. But it also throws up a more immediate question. In the absence of compulsion, will parties act on their own?

The record says no.

Across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry, women have become central to campaign design. Parties recognise them as a decisive voting bloc. Yet that recognition rarely extends to ticket distribution. Women’s votes are pursued. Women’s candidacies are postponed.

Reserved seats, when they come, will force parties to nominate women in designated constituencies. They will not force parties to build a deeper political pipeline through which women gain organisational experience, local credibility and internal leverage before ticket allocation begins. That work cannot be subcontracted to constitutional design. It has to begin inside parties, before the law compels it.

That is why the five April 2026 elections matter. They offer a cleaner test of political intent than any amendment on paper. There is no legal obligation on parties to field more women. There is no electoral penalty yet for fielding fewer. What these elections will show is whether parties treat women’s inclusion as a political commitment or merely as campaign rhetoric — useful in manifestos, dispensable at the nomination stage.

India has announced a larger destination for women’s representation. These elections will reveal whether its parties are willing to move towards it voluntarily, or whether they will do what they have done before: wait to be compelled.

Jyoti Thakur is Associate Fellow, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. Views are personal.