Pedalling through heatwaves in India’s bicycle capital

Scorching heat in Ludhiana grips migrant workers walking, cycling or taking buses to work – and even an early morning ride is a losing battle against heat stress.

Anuj Behal

A factory worker cycles to work in Ludhiana’s Industrial area-A in the early morning hours to beat the scorching heat. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story 

LUDHIANA, Punjab: By 7 am, the sun is blazing and heating up both the asphalt and the bodies on the road. At the crack of dawn, Ram Kumar, 28, scrambles to get ready: he bathes with water collected at the community tap; grabs the lunch his wife has packed in a dabba; and cycles off to work by 7:30. There’s no time to linger; every minute lost makes the ride under the punishing sun that much harder. 

For nearly seven years, Kumar has worked at a garment-dyeing factory, ever since he moved here from Barheta village in Bihar’s Samastipur district. But his daily commute, just under five kilometres, feels longer these days – not in distance, but in effort. “If I leave even a little later (than 7:30 am), pedalling becomes unbearable,” Kumar told The Migration Story. “Chur chur ho jaata hai insaan. Jaan nikal jaati hai din shuru hone se pehle. (Your body feels ripped from within. You feel so drained even before you begin work.)” 

Ludhiana experienced intense heatwaves this May and June, with temperatures soaring above 43 degrees Celsius in May and touching 44°C in June. This extreme heat prompted the Ludhiana Health Department to issue an advisory urging residents to stay indoors between 11 am and 4 pm and to remain hydrated, among other things.

However, for Ludhiana’s vast industrial workforce, staying indoors isn’t a choice. They have to go to work, many on cycles like Kumar, despite the spike in mercury levels. “Even a 7 o’clock sun feels punishing. The air hits you – it’s hot like a furnace,” he said. “But that’s still bearable. After 8 or 8:30 am, you’re drenched in sweat, even before you clock in. Your head throbs with pain by the time work begins.” 

A lunchbox and a gamcha (scarf) are the only things migrants carry with them to work. Sometimes, the food in their lunchboxes gets spoiled due to the heat, even before it’s time to eat. Anuj Behal/The Migration Story 

The garment factory where Kumar works recently changed its reporting time to 8 am – a decision pushed for by the workers. “Usually they change the time by mid-May,” he added. “But this year, we asked for it earlier – the heat was too much.”

Back in his village, the summers were worse, Kumar recalled. They were hotter and drier, but “now there’s no real difference; Ludhiana feels just as bad.” The difference between the two places has blurred for him, and every year, the city seems to have a hotter, more exhausting summer than the last.

A LACK OF CYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE

Ludhiana, one of India’s largest industrial hubs and Punjab’s manufacturing nerve centre, has long drawn workers like Kumar from across the country. With thousands of small and medium enterprises, especially in textiles, hosiery and bicycle production, the city has become a magnet for migrant labour. With an estimated 3.5 lakh (Census 2011) migrant workers, Ludhiana has one of the highest concentrations of these workers in Punjab. Most are employed in informal or semi-formal industrial jobs, and the majority hail from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

The city has for long been dubbed India’s 'bicycle capital'. While it produces nearly 90 % of the country’s cycles and giant brands like Hero and Avon are headquartered here, the city offers little to the workers who pedal every day to work in its factories.

Efforts to build cycling infrastructure have been inconsistent at best. A proposal for a cycle track from Sherpur Chowk to Sahnewal – a key industrial corridor that sees a large, moving population of workers on cycles – has been revised repeatedly but never implemented. Meanwhile, in affluent neighbourhoods like Model Town Extension, cycle tracks lie underused or are blocked by parked cars. 

“The infrastructure that workers really need is being built in places that don’t need it,” said Raj Singh Rajput, president of the Punjab unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Mazdoor Council, a leading labour organisation.

Ludhiana’s working population is overwhelmingly mobile by necessity, according to Prabhnoor Singh, a transport planner with New Delhi-based SGArchitects that works on sustainable urban transport and design. “Cycling and walking are not just modes of transport here – they are lifelines,” he told The Migration Story. Most industrial workers rely on bicycles to commute followed by walking, and a smaller section of workers uses public buses, particularly to access far-flung industrial clusters on the city’s outskirts.  

Outside many factories in Ludhiana, rows of parked bicycles speak of the arduous daily commute of workers. Anuj Behal/The Migration Story    

But in the peak of summer, these lifelines come at a cost. “The heat burns these workers even before they reach work,” Rajput added. “Many factories still stick to a rigid start time, despite workers’ repeated pleas for a change. A few factories have changed their timings by just half an hour – a difference too small to ease the burden – but with most factories, nothing has changed, which forces workers to commute in extreme heat.” Once they reach the factories, they continue to work in sweltering conditions, which makes their days gruelling. 

This exposure to the heat – beginning with the commute – takes a toll on the workers. Studies show that exposure to extreme heat during daily commutes has a lingering effect on health. It can reduce cognitive functioning and cause heat-induced fatigue, which impacts productivity and long-term well-being, especially for those engaged in physical labour.

So, the workers’ urgency to outrun the heat spills onto the streets. Even before sunrise has ended, Ludhiana is already on the move: cyclists weave between trucks, workers rush to factories on foot, and small crowds form at bus stops. The change to earlier work shifts is almost instinctive – a city slowly recalibrating its pace under a sun that shows no mercy.

CHANGING MODES OF TRAVEL OFFERS LITTLE RELIEF

Vinod Shukla, 33, a daily-wage loader from Bahjoi town in U.P’s Sambhal district, has stopped cycling to the factory where he works in the Kuhara industrial area. The heat has made it unbearable to pedal the nearly 10-kilometre stretch, even when his shift was moved up to the early morning hours. “What’s the point of reaching early when they don’t even need you?” he said. “The goods (metal sheets, spare parts and fabricated pieces) arrive only after 10 am – that’s when unloading begins.”

At 8 am, Vinod Shukla (centre), from Bahjoi town in Uttar Pradesh, waits for a bus with other factory workers. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story     

Earlier, cycling had been his default mode of travel – cheap, familiar and predictable. Now, he walks nearly a kilometre from his veerah – a low-cost room he shares with other migrants near the railway station. From there, he catches a bus used mostly by industrial workers, which takes him towards Kuhara. From there, he walks a short distance to the factory. “The bus ride’s no breeze either – overcrowded, hot and you barely get to sit. But still, it’s better than baking under the sun for an hour on a cycle,” he said.

Changing his mode of transport, though, has come at a cost. He pays 40 rupees for a round trip on the bus, which eats into his daily wage of 620 rupees. “I end up paying for the bus almost as much as I pay in a month for electricity. But what choice do I have? If I don’t spend money here, I’ll end up spending more at the doctor because of this heat.”

Shukla is not alone. Around 70% of people living in Indian cities travel about 10 kilometres for work or education, with an average one-way commute of 27 minutes, according to a report by the New Delhi-based think tank Council On Energy, Environment And Water. The average distance walked to access public transport is 1.4 kms – and the majority cover this first-mile distance on foot. For those like Shukla, this daily exposure to the heat in the peak of summer quickly adds up, making commuting to work a heat stress event.

Most public buses in Ludhiana lack air conditioning and by 11 am, run empty as workers avoid travelling during the peak heat hours. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story 

Shukla migrated to Ludhiana nearly a decade ago and has been living in the same veerah ever since. His landlord was kind enough not to hike the rent drastically over the years, and the neighbourhood has now grown familiar to him and his family – his two children attend a government school nearby, and his wife, a homemaker, has found a small circle of friends. “We’ve built a small world here,” he said. “The factory pays slightly better than others I’ve worked at, even though it’s far.”

For Abdul Gaffar, a street vendor from Jaideopatti village in Bihar’s Darbhanga district, moving closer to the city centre offers no real advantage. His work depends on footfall, which varies across locations and changes with the time of day. 

Every morning, he and his friend wake up early in Salem Tabri, on the city’s periphery, to prepare a lemonade premix. They load this premix and other ingredients on their carts, which they then push several kilometres to vending spots near the Clock Tower and the Ludhiana Junction railway station.

“Morning crowds gather near the railway station, but by afternoon, it’s the Clock Tower that draws people,” he explained. “We have to keep moving with the crowd.” But with the heat driving people off the streets, foot traffic has become unpredictable – and so has business. “It’s not like staying in one place will help,” he added. “You need to be where the people are, and even they vanish when the sun gets too harsh.”

Every day, Gaffar and his friend have to move their cart from one location to another under the blazing sun. Their only protection from the heat is a gamcha or scarf, soaked in water and tied around their heads. It helps a little, but not for long.

With limited shade or tree cover – especially in areas on the city’s periphery, which are surrounded by wide roads and little else – the heat is inescapable. “We’ve found a few trees here and there and turned them into rest stops,” said Gaffar. “We stand still for a few minutes (under them), drink some water, maybe share a melon, soak the gamcha again, and move on.”

Abdul Gaffar, a lemonade vendor from Jaideopatti village in Bihar’s Darbhanga district, pushes his cart on Ludhiana’s Clock Tower Road as the morning heat intensifies. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story 

According to Singh, most roads in Ludhiana lack even basic pedestrian infrastructure. “There are no footpaths, no dedicated cycle tracks and shade, which is so crucial in this heat, is nearly impossible to find,” he said. “It’s especially bad in the industrial zones, where most working-class communities live and work.”

WORKING ON THE MOVE IN EXTREME HEAT

Like Gaffar, countless other workers in Ludhiana find little escape from the punishing heat. Their work is built around constant movement – mobility isn’t just about reaching work; it is the work.

Dashmesh Kumar, 32, loads and unloads undyed cloth and other raw materials from trucks, which shuttle between factories near Industrial Area-C. “We’re thrown into the trucks along with the goods,” he said. The truck makes seven to ten round trips between these factories every day. But before he gets on the open truck, Kumar cycles to the factory in the sun. “For three to four hours, you’re just in transit.” 

The journeys not only strain his back but they also drain him. Limited access to drinking water while he’s in transit and long hours in the sun often leave him nauseous and dizzy by the end of the day.

A transporter loads goods on his cycle and gets ready to move them from one industrial unit to another in Ludhiana. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story   

Though the factory has a booth that provides ORS (oral rehydration solution) drinks, a medical doctor on-site always, and serves lemonade intermittently, Dashmesh expressed hesitation about taking sick leave. “It’s hot every day, and every day I feel chills run through my body. If I ask for a day off, the factory owner will say yes, but it’s our pay that gets cut.”

Jeevan Lal, 42, has been ferrying metal spare parts from one factory to another on his cycle cart for years. Originally from U.P.’s Bahraich district, he now works in the Focal Point-1 industrial area. “My rubber slippers heat up and burn my feet in this heat. Sometimes, the numbness in my legs makes me stop more frequently,” he said. With hardly any trees around, Lal often rests by simply sitting on his cart. “The heat builds up in your body, and you feel desperate to take your slippers off and cool your feet down,” he added.

Subhash, 65, a cycle rickshaw puller working in the same area, shares a similar experience. The frequent breaks he takes between trips aren’t just about fatigue – they’re about a strange lethargy he said he’d never felt before. “There’s confusion – is it my age or is it this constant heat?” he wondered aloud. 

Lately, he has started carrying a mirror with him just to check if his eyes are turning red because of the dust, dehydration and heat. “My eyes never used to turn red this quickly before,” he added. “With the heat and all the sweating, I have to keep splashing water on my face just to get some relief.” He also carries packets of buttermilk and wraps multiple scarves on his head to protect it from the sun.

Lal and Subhash, both of whom work independently, said that the heat is affecting their ability to earn. Fewer trips are possible and fewer customers venture out in the scorching sun. If they work less, they make less money.  

For those who have employers, taking a break from work isn’t always feasible. With the majority of workers in the informal sector, the fear of losing their jobs keeps them going, despite the heat. 

In Ludhiana’s Janta Nagar area, cycle puller Subhash carries a mirror to check if his eyes are turning red from the heat and a packet of buttermilk he can drink to cool down. Anuj Behal/The Migration Story     

“Many workers don’t even express discomfort or talk about the health issues they face due to the heat because they’re afraid of losing their jobs,” said Apekshita Varshney, founder of the non-profit HeatWatch. “If they speak up or complain, there’s always the risk that the contractor or employer may stop giving them work.”

She added that in such situations “any kind of advisory or early warning system is futile unless it is backed by strong social protection efforts”. These include guaranteed and paid sick leave during heatwaves; mandatory rest breaks; insurance for heat-related illnesses; wage protection if people are advised not to work during peak heat hours; and enforceable labour laws that penalise unsafe working conditions. Without such safeguards, Varshney explained, heat alerts become meaningless for the working poor, who are forced to choose between their health and their livelihood.

And this is equally true for self-employed workers and gig workers, Varshney added, who often make meagre incomes. Without adequate government safety nets, taking a break or seeking healthcare becomes nearly impossible for these workers.

An e-rickshaw driver in Ludhiana’s Sherpur industrial area splashes water on his face to cool down as the afternoon heat intensifies. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story 

MISSING IN CITIES: TREES AND SHADE

According to the 2011 Census, 45 million people in Indian cities walk to work and over 26 million people commute on cycles. While mobility is central to urban life, transport systems and infrastructure projects continue to ignore the impact of extreme heat on commuters, especially on non-motorised ones like cyclists.

“As extreme heat intensifies, Indian cities are falling short on making everyday mobility thermally comfortable because climate resilience is still not central to how we design streets and transit infrastructure,” said Aswathy Dilip, Managing Director at the India chapter of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a global nonprofit. “Most road redevelopment projects continue to prioritise road widening or flyovers, often at the cost of mature trees that offer natural shade.”

A 2016 study in Chennai by researcher Lilly Rose Amirtham revealed a stark difference of 10°C between areas under the direct sun and those under tree cover. Yet, most Indian streets still lack basic shading infrastructure, leaving pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users exposed to the heat, especially since well-designed bus stops or shaded walkways are mostly absent.

The real gap in Indian cities isn't just in physical infrastructure – it's in long-term, climate-conscious planning. A 2025 study by Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC), an independent research organisation, found that Ludhiana is among nine Indian cities most vulnerable to future heatwaves due to poor preparedness and limited mitigation strategies. It is also one of the two cities in the list without a heat action plan.

That said, there have been some promising, though nascent, steps taken by the city. In a significant move, the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation began aligning its tree plantation drives with heat vulnerability data using heat maps to identify the city’s hottest wards – such as Kunj Vihar, Chander Lok Colony and Shakti Nagar – for targeted greening. The goal is to reduce surface temperatures and improve thermal comfort in these areas. While the tree plantation efforts have begun, their impact will take time to be felt.

A worker is seen commuting by cycle to a factory in Ludhiana’s Industrial Area-B, where there is little tree cover and shade. Rajneesh Verma/The Migration Story   

Singh emphasised that Ludhiana urgently needs to adopt a more inclusive and collaborative approach to urban planning – one that actively involves the working classes whose lives depend on the city’s mobility infrastructure. “The municipal corporation must identify and prioritise specific routes that see heavy usage by workers, improve bus services with air conditioning, and ensure that these routes get the attention they deserve,” he said. 

However, Rajput pointed out the systemic neglect faced by migrant workers. “Since most of the workers taking these routes are migrants, they are often excluded from planning discussions and public policy priorities. As long as they remain ‘outsiders’, their crises will continue to be ignored and their voices unheard,” he said. 

This invisibility of migrants is not just institutional – it plays out in urgent, physical ways as workers push through rising temperatures with little choice or support. As Gaffar said, “We’re migrants far from our own land, and we’ve come here only to work. If we stop because the heat is too much, if we don’t work hard, our children won’t eat.” He paused, let out a quiet laugh and added, “Rukne ka nahi, bas kisi tarah kamate raho (You cannot stop, you have to keep earning).”

Edited by Subuhi Jiwani

Anuj Behal is an independent journalist and urban researcher primarily focusing on urban informality, justice, gender, and sexuality

This story is produced as part of The Heat Shift series that will explore the unequal impact of heat on some of the world’s most marginalised

The author has researched the subject for an ongoing project on rising heat undertaken for People First Cities that looks at inclusive, participatory approaches to improve the quality of life of informal settlement residents and informal workers.