New Delhi, April 19 -- Savitri, a 48-year-old street vendor, trades utensils for old garments, going door-to-door in densely populated localities of Delhi. Her already strenuous work-walking or crammed into buses with a headload of over 20kg for 10 hours a day-intensifies in the heat.

In June last year, Savitri, whose husband is also a street vendor, suffered a heat stroke and was unable to work for two weeks. Faced with income loss, she borrowed Rs.2,000 from her relatives and picked utensils worth Rs.5,000 on credit from a shop owner. Ten months later, she is yet to fully repay the money.

"We find fewer customers on hotter days and get exhausted quickly due to heat and humidity. What we earn and save during winters gets spent during s...