Recently, the Tamil Nadu government made a gazette notification that heatwave is a state disaster, clubbing it with 13 other eventualities such as deaths caused by electrocution, thunderstorm and lighting, floods and snakebite. Families of victims including relief workers who died due to heatwave, would be eligible for an ex-gratia of ₹ 4 lakh.

These are significant steps as greater onus is now on the State Government to take various measures to reduce heatwave-related causalities in the State (remember, heatwaves are not yet notified as a disaster at the national level under the existing disaster relief policies).