Damned if you go out, damned if you stay in.

“You can’t get out because of the sweltering heat and it is difficult to stay indoors because of power cuts. It can’t get worse than this,” said 63-year-old Anima Banerjee, a resident of Swinhoe Street.

The maximum temperature read 38.6 degrees Celsius and the discomfort index shot up to 66.4 degrees Celsius, 11 notches above normal, on Tuesday. Frequent — and long — power cuts added to the cruelty of April.

The Met office is not expecting rain in the next 48 hours.

“The maximum temperature will hover around 38 degrees for the next 48 hours,” said `.

According to him, dry and hot winds blowing in from the northwestern and central parts of the country had pushed up the maximum temperature.

“It’s 38.6… I thought it was more like 42 degrees while travelling in our office car along EM Bypass,” said Ronita Roy, an employee of an IT company in Salt Lake.

The discomfort index, calculated by taking into account factors like temperature, wind-flow pattern and humidity, bore evidence of the misery.

At 11.30am, the discomfort index was 63.4 degrees Celsius and at 2.30pm it was 66.4 degrees Celsius, much above the normal of 55.

As summer vacations are a fortnight away, many schools are figuring out ways to protect students from exposure to the heat.

“Our physical education classes are being held indoors if it is too hot outside. We are also keeping the little ones indoors during the recess,” said Malini Bhagat, principal, Mahadevi Birla Girls’ High School.

Birla High School for Boys and Modern High School have taken similar measures. Cool drinks have been stocked in the canteens.

“Why can’t they declare summer vacation in advance? I don’t feel like sending my six-year-old son to school. I think it’s not safe for the kid,” said the mother of a Pratt Memorial student.

Adults are not safe either. Akhileswar Kumar Ray, a constable with Burtolla police station, collapsed at the Maniktala intersection on Tuesday morning and died on the way to hospital.

While it cannot be said if he died of sunstroke until the post-mortem results are known, the soaring temperature could have contributed to the calamity, doctors said.

“It’s perhaps impractical for traffic policemen to carry water. But it is important that they drink safe water and other fluids at regular intervals to beat the heat,” said critical care expert Rajiv Seal.

According to him, children could fall sick in such weather. “Parents ought to send children to school with filtered and boiled water and fruit juice. The schools too could provide the kids oral rehydration solution.”

One effective solution to the hot spell will be uninterrupted power supply. But the demand-supply gap in CESC-served areas increased to 125 MW in the evening peak hours while for the districts the shortfall was over 260 MW.

“Frequent power cuts have become a routine. Every day, we are suffering at least 3 to 4 hours of power cuts,” said Ananya Chatterje, a resident of Gariahat.