The sustained readings have placed Banda among India’s most extreme heat locations, a distinction long associated with Rajasthan’s Churu and Jaisalmer.

So intense is the heat that by 10 every morning, Banda shuts down. Lakhan Gupta, a jeweller in Attara town, leaves home at 6am to finish most of his work before the heat settles. By 9, he is back. By 10, the road outside is empty. The shutters of his shop remain open, but customers rarely come before evening.

“Since April, I have sold almost nothing,” Gupta says. “After 10am, Banda becomes deserted. At first, you see one or two people outside. Then, as the day rises, there is only silence.”

On April 27 this year, Banda recorded 47.6°C, the highest temperature anywhere in India that day and its highest since 1951, surpassing its previous April peak of 47.4°C reached on April 30, 2022, and April 25, 2026. On Tuesday, Banda was again the hottest in India at 48.2°C, setting a new record.

The sustained readings have placed Banda among India’s most extreme heat locations — a distinction long associated with Rajasthan towns such as Churu and Jaisalmer. Researchers say the district’s vulnerability reflects not just the intensifying effects of the climate crisis, but years of localised ecological destruction that has stripped away the natural systems that once moderated its climate.

The effects, locals say, is widespread disruption to how people work. This year, farmers began working fields at night under LED floodlights because daytime labour had become unbearable. Contractors say labourers are sacrificing up to 40% of their wages rather than work between 10am and 5pm. Migration has started earlier than usual. Food stalls that once opened through the afternoon now operate after sunset.

“The time has come to look at this seriously. Otherwise Banda will not remain liveable,” says Prahlad Valmiki, a resident of Bhadedu village whose wife is the local Pradhan. Valmiki said he has spent the summer fielding complaints from neighbours about heat, water and failing crops.

At 44 substations across Banda, electricity department staff are continuously pouring water on over 1,379 transformers after several units malfunctioned over the past 45 days due to extreme temperatures and excessive load, with supply already running to nearly 16 hours a day, power officials said.

Environmental researchers and local activists say what is unfolding in Banda is tied to years of ecological degradation across Bundelkhand’s already fragile landscape. A study published in the Journal of Extension Systems, co-authored by Arjun P Varma of Banda Agriculture University, tracked forest cover from 1991-92 to 2021-22 and found Banda lost nearly a sixth of its dense forest cover. Open forests shrank at similar rates. The decline was consistent across every measure the researchers applied.