Odisha: Bhubaneswar gets India's first integrated heat and cooling action plan

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], September 3 (ANI): The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, in collaboration with environment think tank International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST), released the Integrated Heat and Cooling Action Plan (IHCAP) for the city on September 2.
Developed by iFOREST in collaboration with the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC), the plan provides a roadmap to address rising temperatures, humidity, the Urban Heat Island effect, and the growing demand for air conditioners.
Speaking to ANI, Bhubaneswar Mayor Sulochana Das informed about the research conducted by the iFOREST in collaboration with the Singapore-ETH Centre on heatwaves and rising temperatures in Odisha's capital.
"The iFOREST had done a collaboration with the Singapore cooling plant. Research was done on the heatwave and rising temperatures in Bhubaneswar. Today, they have released a research paper on the Integrated Heat and Cooling Action Plan for Bhubaneswar. It says that urbanisation cannot be stopped, and deforestation is happening because of it, but how much greenery will we plant to compensate for it, and how many trees will we plant? There is a plan and suggestion about all this, too," Mayor Das said.

Highlighting the uniqueness of the initiative, iFOREST CEO Chandra Bhushan said that the IHCAP addresses both the issues of increasing heat effects and the demand for air conditioners. He stated that the report took 18 months to prepare.
"This is the first action plan of India because the way heat is increasing and the way demand for air conditioners is increasing, it addresses both the challenges. Its technical modelling and modelling exercise have been done through the Cooling Singapore Program. It was an extensive process of 18 months to prepare this report," Bhushan told ANI.
From the Singapore side, Ander Zozaya, Project Manager at Cooling Singapore, ETH Centre, told ANI, "iFOREST has provided all the data that we need for our models. In Singapore, we are happy with the developments that we have made. It has brought all the different government agencies to work together. In Bhubaneswar, we have to analyse and study to support their Integrated Heat and Cooling Action Plan." (ANI)