New Delhi, Nov 2: Heat stress due to working outdoors may have caused a 10 per cent decline in productivity among migrant workers in India over the past four decades, a study has estimated.

Researchers, including those from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, also show that during 1980-2021 rural-to-urban migration hotspots in north, east and south India saw a significant increase in humidity, pointing to a higher heat stress experienced by the section of society indoors.

Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Hyderabad are the top four urban areas experiencing the highest inflow of migrants, with total population estimated to be up to 10 million, they said.

The study, published in the journal Earth’s Future, projects that with each additional degree of global warming, migrant workers

See Full Page