Every day, they show up, in the relentless heat or pouring rain. Bengaluru’s outdoor workers — traffic police, auto drivers, pourakarmikas, construction workers, street vendors and gig workers — battle dehydration, exhaustion, and health problems in extreme weather with hardly any relief. They keep the city running but get little in return. This photo-essay puts a spotlight on their daily struggles and calls for urgent heat mitigation measures.
No exit lane from the heat: A traffic police officer’s account
Three hours under the sun daily — not a choice but a daily reality for Assistant Sub-Inspector Satish KP of Bengaluru South Division’s HSR Layout Traffic Police. Satish starts his shift at 8.30 am, managing morning peak traffic at major junctions until 11.30 am. The dust kicked up by vehicles enters his nose and mouth, and the honking and engine noise seem even louder in the heat. Within an hour, his legs ache, but he stays focused on keeping the traffic moving.
Afternoons are for administrative duties, such as attending Students Association for Road Safety (S.A.R.S) programmes or special drives. By 4.30 pm, he’s back on the road managing the chaotic evening traffic, often staying back late till the roads clear up at night. For 20 years, Satish has maintained this 12-hour routine.
“The heat now is 20–40% worse than five years ago, thanks to the surge in vehicles and pollution,” he says. The white cotton uniform provided by the department offers some respite. But the constant exposure to dust necessitates frequent changes, sometimes daily during extreme heat.
Prolonged exposure to the sun and traffic have taken a toll on his health. Satish suffers frequently from dust allergies, leg pain, varicose veins and occasional dizziness. While masks are recommended for dust protection, they add to the discomfort in the heat, causing sweat and skin irritation.
To stay hydrated Satish carries a water bottle from home, wary of drinking from other sources. For a quick cool-down, he sometimes pays a visit to a nearby juice shop. 10-minute breaks are the longest possible, when an assistant officer takes over the work. With no dedicated rest areas, the rare tree shade or the police station are the only viable options. Notably, essential sun protection like sunglasses and umbrellas are not provided by the department.
Looking beyond immediate personal needs, however, Satish stresses the need for better infrastructure and public cooperation to ease the pressure on traffic police. “Roads, signals, and signboards must be properly maintained to manage Bengaluru’s traffic,” he says.
He also urges citizens to make better transport choices. “If more people used public transport or carpooled, it would reduce congestion and help us do our jobs better,” he added. Smoother traffic flow would benefit both commuters and those managing the city’s roads under the intense heat.
Read more: Lasting heat: How is the Urban Heat Island effect impacting Mumbaikars?
The long haul of heat: An auto-driver’s reality
After three relentless hours of navigating Bengaluru’s sun-scorched streets, Srinivasa — an auto driver from Magadi Road — finally pulls over. Dizzy and dehydrated, he parks his faded yellow-green auto rickshaw under the shade of a tree. The empty roads seem to mock the bright orange “FOR HIRE” sign on the vehicle. With a slow sip from a plastic water bottle, he cools his parched throat, wipes the sweat off his brow, and readies himself for the next ride.
This isn’t just a bad day — it’s everyday reality for Srinivasa and many others like him.
Srinivasa’s usual route takes him through areas like Majestic, KR Market, Kamakshipalya, Vijayanagara, and Mysore Road. These streets, once teeming with commuters, are now eerily quiet in the midday sun. Fewer people outside means fewer passengers, and that means less income.
“Ten or twelve passengers at the most in a day now,” Srinivasa says. “Earlier, even fifteen felt like a slow day. This heat… it steals more than just our energy.”
The heat also causes his rickshaw’s engine to overheat frequently, causing him to stop every now and then to cool it down. This eats further into his already limited earnings. After covering fuel and maintenance costs, Srinivasa’s daily savings have dwindled to around ₹300 — barely enough to get by.
Driving for hours under the scorching sun means constant fatigue, dizziness, aching limbs — and then there’s the heavy, sweat-soaked khaki uniform that offers no comfort. “But I have to wear it,” he says. “If not, the police will give me trouble.”
Starting earlier in the day might offer some relief from the heat, but that is not an option. He needs to drop off his children at college and his wife at work before he can start his shift. The intense heat disrupts his sleep at night, leaving him exhausted even before the day starts.
To cope, Srinivasa wears a cap or covers his head with a kerchief, sometimes wetting it with water for added coolness. “I avoid juices, but drinking tea freshens up my mind,” he says. But these are all temporary fixes for a problem that calls for systemic solutions.
Srinivasa believes government intervention, like a reduction in gas prices for financial relief, could ease the pressure. He also speaks of the lack of awareness programmes or emergency kits to help drivers cope with extreme weather.
For now, though, the cycle continues. Work. Eat. Sleep (barely). Repeat. All under a sun that doesn’t seem to show any mercy.
Read more: Summer is no fun: The silent toll of heat on children
Sweeping under a blazing sun : A Pourakarmika’s heatwave routine
The morning sun itself is quite unforgiving for Sunita P, a pourakarmika sweeping the streets of Bengaluru’s Chennamanakere. Sunitha begins her day before sunrise but the heat still weighs down heavily, leaving her hair damp and her uniform soaked with sweat.
By 6 am, Sunitha is ready to sweep the lanes clear of dust and garbage in Goripalya. Her shift ends at 2 pm on most days, and 10.30 am on Sundays and Wednesdays. She has been doing this for 13 years now. “Our group of 15 covers this stretch of the city every day, come rain, cold, or ruthless sun,” she says.
Her job, which brings her a salary of ₹18,000, demands strict attendance. Missing work means pay deductions. Raincoats are provided during the monsoons, but there is no relief during the summers. Their regular uniforms only make the heat worse. Jhatka.org has in fact, launched a campaign calling for a change in these uniforms, pointing out that the current synthetic ones trap more heat and moisture.
“We’re given caps,” says Sunitha, “but no umbrellas or water bottles. We bring bottles from home and request people across the street to fill them up.” The scattered trees of the neighbourhood provide the only shade they get.
Toilets are a daily challenge. The public ones charge ₹5, but they are distant, often inaccessible and mostly unhygienic. “Some women are forced to go behind the trees,” she admits. Sometimes she has seen her colleagues falter and collapse in the heat, their work picked up by those still standing.
Sunitha’s home, thankfully, offers good ventilation and has two working fans. But out here on the sizzling streets, there is little respite. She asks for little, though: “Just an umbrella, ORS, or juice to hydrate would help.” She and her co-workers plan to raise their concerns with higher officials.
Life on the pavement: Heat and other enemies of the homeless
The scorching sun beats down mercilessly as she waits for hours beside her wooden pushcart under an umbrella’s shade, hoping for customers. The cart is loaded with red tomatoes, tender ladyfingers, green capsicums, gourds and a pumpkin. But only a few stop to buy. Only half of her vegetables get sold on most days, while the rest rot. Meet Tilaka, a street vendor and cobbler, who struggles to make ends meet on the dusty streets of Srinivasnagara in Bengaluru.
Her alcoholic husband, Venkatesh, a cobbler for 30 years now, lives separately with a relative. This has left Tilaka, a 12-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son, homeless and alone. Education is a luxury the family cannot afford, but the kids help her run the cart.
The family sleeps on the pavement utilising plastic banners as bedding and old sacks as pillows. They store their belongings in dusty cardboard boxes. Tilaka constantly suffers from urinary tract infections and dizziness due to long hours spent under the heat, with no access to safe drinking water and toilet facilities.
“We rely on the kindness of strangers for even a bottle of water,” she said. The umbrellas once donated by a nearby store are now worn out, offering minimal protection. They bathe with water from a borewell or tank, fetched from miles away. Unsanitary public toilets are their only choice.
When asked if they have ever received any help, she shakes her head. “No one helps us. Even the police ask for ₹700 as mamul (customary fee). If we don’t pay, they threaten to throw our things or send us away.”
Tilaka dreams of a small shop, stable, shaded and safe. “We’re in an orphaned state. The privileged only help the privileged,” she says, dejected.
Beating the heat, brick by brick: A construction worker’s summer travails
The scrape of shovels, the clang of tools, the whirr of machines, and the creak of scaffolding echoes as Raja, a construction worker, mixes cement under the blazing sun at a site near Chennamanakere, Bengaluru. The air is thick with heat and gritty dust. As he stands on the rough concrete floor, sweat lines his brow, and his arms are taut under exertion.
But there is no respite from this, however hot it may get.“When we get tired, we rest for five minutes, drink some water, and then continue working,” he says, his voice dry and raspy.
Originally from Kallakurichi, Tamil Nadu, Raja has been working on this multi-storey building for six months, drawing on 25 years of experience. He lives nearby with his wife and three children in a small shanty made of concrete blocks and topped with a corrugated metal roof.
“Wherever we build, we live there,” he explained, highlighting the transient nature of their lives. But this makeshift home offers little protection from the intense heat. The concrete walls absorb the sun’s heat and release it slowly, while the metal roof traps it inside. Limited space and poor ventilation make the interior stifling during hot days. “Narrow working spaces prevent any breeze from coming through,” he says.
Construction dust aggravates respiratory issues and allergies. Workers like Raja, especially those on the upper floors exposed to direct sunlight, are vulnerable to sunburn and heatstroke. His T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops offer little protection, and contact between sweat and certain construction materials can even cause chemical burns.
Raja and his family survive on a daily wage of ₹1200 — barely enough to meet their basic needs.
Despite being the backbone of the city’s infrastructure, workers like Raja lack the minimum essential safeguards against the harsh climate. What they need urgently are shaded rest areas, access to cool drinking water throughout the day, longer and more frequent breaks during peak heat hours, and awareness programmes on heatstroke prevention. But as things stand now, none of this seems likely to be in place anytime soon.
Deliveries during a heatwave: A gig worker’s daily grind
Faraz Alam was hunched over four parottas drenched in hot salna (a spicy gravy) near a bus stop when I approached him. The combination of the street food cart’s steam, the foul smell from a sewage canal by the stop, and the dust spewed by road traffic seemed to suffocate him. Yet he ate quickly, with desperation, in a silent race against the clock. Just as he was about to hand over his plate, the phone buzzed. A delivery. With a practised, nonchalant expression, he hopped on his bike and sped off.
Taking breaks is a luxury for most gig workers like Faraz. Hailing from a village in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, he has been working with Zomato, an online food delivery service, for the past year. He lives in Uttarahalli with friends and works long hours — from 8 am to 10 pm — earning about ₹600 a day, or roughly ₹20,000 a month. Each day, he travels nearly 100 km across Bengaluru to deliver food.
The relentless summer heat presents significant challenges. “While the company provides a cap, I often wear a full-sleeve shirt instead of the red company T-shirt to protect my arms from the sun,” he said. He also wears a cloth mask, which helps with dust and heat but causes discomfort and heavy sweating.
Read more: Scorching streets: Understanding urban heat islands in Bengaluru’s market areas
During breaks, he stands outside restaurants or sits in the shade of buildings. But his job leaves little time for rest and delays can lead to penalties. “Between the searing heat and endless traffic, my head throbs with frustration. Putting on earphones and listening to music helps a bit. But I can’t even stop for a juice in the middle of my shift,” he added.
Zomato has introduced rest points for delivery partners under its “Shelters Project,” offering amenities such as seating, drinking water, and phone charging. However, these facilities are not yet available throughout the city. Faraz doesn’t carry a water bottle, relying instead on the goodwill of the restaurants or customers he visits — from small street-side stalls to upscale establishments — for a sip of water or a brief rest. The reception he receives varies widely.
For gig workers like him, meaningful policy changes are essential. Ensuring access to clean drinking water throughout shifts, reducing working hours during peak heat, creating more shaded rest areas, and introducing heat-specific allowances or incentives could significantly improve their working conditions and overall well-being.