‘More important than food’: Extreme heat is shifting how Indians think about AC

By the first week of April, Mohammad Asif could no longer sleep.

The ceiling fan in his rented room in Delhi whirred through the night, pushing hot air from one corner of the room to another. Even after midnight, the heat lingered.

Mr. Asif moved from Kashmir’s cool mountain valleys to India’s capital seven months ago to take up a government job in the education department. He arrived after summer had passed, and assumed he could manage the next one with a fan.

Why We Wrote This

As heat waves intensify across India, air conditioners are shifting from an aspirational good to a survival tool, giving rise to a new AC rental market in major cities. What does it take to stay cool in Delhi?

Then, temperatures began to climb.

“People had warned me about Delhi’s summers, but I thought I would manage,” he says. “Once the heat set in, it became unbearable.”

An air conditioner was not in his budget. Much of his income goes toward supporting his wife, infant daughter, and parents still living in Kashmir, and the cheapest unit would cost nearly a month’s salary. But as the heat intensified, he felt he had little choice. He took out a loan and bought an air conditioner for 30,000 rupees (about $314).

“It didn’t feel like a luxury purchase,” he says. “It felt like a necessity.”

Across India, millions of households are reaching the same conclusion. As heat waves become more frequent and intense across South Asia, air conditioners are rapidly shifting from aspirational consumer goods to essential tools for coping with daily life. Yet access remains deeply unequal. While AC ownership is rising, only about 8% to 10% of India’s roughly 300 million households currently own an air conditioner, leaving hundreds of millions of people exposed to dangerous heat – or turning to a fast-growing AC rental market.

“This trend exposes a deep ‘cooling apartheid’ in India,” says Harjeet Singh, founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, an advocacy organization based in Delhi. “While affluent households run multiple units without a second thought, poorer families are pushed into debt cycles just to keep a single room livable.”

Aakash Hassan

Roadside vegetable vendor Ajay Kumar, pictured pushing his bike in the heat in Gurugram, India, says he cannot afford an air conditioner. Like many low-income workers, he relies instead on fans.

“Every summer is busier than the last”

The need for cooling is becoming harder to ignore. Temperatures in Delhi and surrounding states have already touched 46 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit) this year, according to government data. In recent years, parts of neighboring Rajasthan have recorded temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). Scientists also warn that densely built cities are trapping heat after sunset, leading to increasingly hot nights and offering little relief after scorching days.

On the hottest days, Assad Khan’s workshop in the south Delhi neighborhood of Abul Fazal grows crowded. Technicians weave between stacks of air conditioners, their phones ringing with constant requests for rentals, servicing, and emergency repairs.

Mr. Khan started his air-conditioner repair business about 25 years ago. As demand for cooling grew, he began refurbishing older units and renting them out, starting with just two machines.

Today, he rents out more than 150.

“Every summer is busier than the last,” he says. “If I had more units and more technicians, I could easily rent out hundreds more.”

The climbing heat has also changed the nature of Mr. Khan’s business. Air conditioners are running for longer hours and under greater strain, leading to more breakdowns and repair calls during the peak summer months.

“The hotter it gets, the harder these machines have to work,” he says. “We’re fixing far more units than we used to.”

Across Delhi, hundreds of rental businesses now offer seasonal air conditioners, typically charging between 7,000 and 15,000 rupees ($73 to 157) for the summer, including installation and servicing.

“Many of our customers simply can’t afford to buy a new AC,” Mr. Khan says. “For them, renting is the only way to get through the summer.”

Aakash Hassan

Soubit Kumar operates a sugarcane juice cart along a roadside in Gurugram, India, May 21, 2026. Unable to afford an air conditioner on his own, he pooled money with his uncle to rent one for their shared home, where eight family members sleep in a single room to escape the heat.

A climate paradox

Air conditioners save lives, but not without a cost.

While cooling Indian homes, the rattling window units rented out in shops across Delhi also release heat into the surrounding environment and place growing pressure on electricity networks. According to the  International Energy Agency , India could have more than 1 billion air conditioners in operation by 2050, up from fewer than 50 million in 2020. The agency estimates that every 1 degree Celsius rise in outdoor temperature was associated with roughly a 7-gi…