Sanitation, Spending, and Accountability
Animesh Rohmetra
animesh rohmetra1@gmail.com
Jammu city, the winter capital of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, stands at a critical juncture in its urban governance and civic management. Despite repeated official claims of improved sanitation and visibility in national cleanliness surveys, data from government budget disclosures, academic studies, municipal records, and independent assessments indicate that road cleanliness, waste disposal efficiency, infrastructure investment, and execution of critical civic works remain structurally inadequate and under delivered. The gap between official narratives and on ground realities has become increasingly difficult to reconcile.
Available studies estimate that Jammu city generates approximately 350-400 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste per day, with a per-capita waste generation rate of about 0.45-0.55 kilograms per person per day. This waste stream originates from households, markets, institutions, and public spaces. Managing such a volume requires a tightly coordinated system of door to door collection, segregation at source, transportation, processing, and final disposal. However, assessments of Jammu Municipal Corporation’s (JMC) operations indicate that door to door waste collection does not yet cover the entire city and, where collection exists, it is often limited to mixed waste rather than properly segregated streams. A comprehensive, fully inclusive collection service remains unrealised.
The distinction between waste collected and waste scientifically disposed of is crucial. Government compiled municipal solid waste data for the Union Territory shows that less than 20 percent of total waste generated undergoes formal treatment or processing, with the remainder either dumped untreated or managed in ways that fall short of environmental standards. While UT level data does not disaggregate city specific figures, it provides an important benchmark. If Jammu city broadly mirrors this pattern, it implies that a significant proportion of its daily waste load is neither recycled nor scientifically treated, contributing both to landfill pressure and to visible littering across urban spaces.
Jammu’s primary disposal site, the Kot Bhalwal dumping ground, illustrates this challenge starkly. The site functions largely as an open dump rather than a fully engineered sanitary landfill. Reports indicate that the landfill has accumulated nearly three lakh tonnes of legacy waste over the years and continues to receive fresh waste without adequate pre processing or segregation. nvironmental concerns associated with the site include odour emissions, leachate seepage, and vector proliferation, all of which directly affect nearby habitations. Despite periodic announcements about remediation and biomining, publicly available data on the actual quantum of waste processed or reclaimed from Kot Bhalwal remains limited.
Recycling and resource recovery form another weak link in the system. Modern urban waste management frameworks depend heavily on segregation at source to divert recyclable and organic material away from landfills. JMC has undertaken awareness drives and established facilities such as a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) at Bandhu Rakh, intended to process organic waste into compost and recover recyclable fractions. However, national survey data and independent studies indicate that only around one quarter of households in Jammu consistently practice waste segregation at source, sharply limiting the effectiveness of MRFs and composting units. This deficiency undermines the city’s ability to divert waste from disposal to recycling and reuse channels.
Official cleanliness rankings, including Jammu’s improved position in Swachh Survekshan 2024, present a mixed picture. On paper, the city performs well on certain metrics, with reports suggesting that over 90 percent of households receive daily waste collection services. Yet, these figures coexist with widespread citizen complaints and visible evidence of littered roads, overflowing bins, and waste accumulation in markets, road dividers, and residential lanes. This contradiction points to a critical operational issue: collection coverage alone does not guarantee cleanliness unless it is matched by effective street sweeping, timely secondary collection, drain cleaning, and public enforcement against open dumping.
Road cleanliness in particular remains a visible area of concern. In high density commercial areas, garbage often accumulates faster than municipal crews can remove it, especially during peak business hours. In several localities, waste dumped on roadsides or near drains is spread by animals or rainwater, leading to clogged drainage systems and stagnant water. These conditions undermine the visual character of the city and pose documented public health risks, particularly during the monsoon season. The absence of a reliably functional drainage network one that coordinates with waste collection to prevent choked drains heightens these risks, yet execution of promised drainage upgrades has lagged behind allocations and public expectations.
The disconnect between budget allocations and project execution is especially striking in the context of infrastructure works that directly impact sanitation. Historically, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir approved a budget for Jammu Municipal Corporation that has increased significantly over time, signaling the availability of financial resources for civic facilities, including sanitation, drainage, and allied infrastructure. For example, the municipal budget reportedly expanded from roughly Rs. 25 crore to Rs. 168 crore, a shift framed in official rhetoric as evidence of enhanced capacity for service delivery.
In addition, specific allocations were made by the government for civic development under the Smart City and urban development frameworks. Official sources indicated that a budget of Rs. 75 crore was approved for JMC, of which an initial Rs. 35 crore was released for developmental works, including those ostensibly linked to public amenities.
Despite these budgetary allocations, residents and civic experts observe that the actual conversion of funds into tangible sanitation infrastructure such as comprehensive drainage systems and enhanced cleaning equipment has been slow or incomplete. Drainage works, critical to preventing waterlogging and facilitating street cleaning, remain partly uncompleted in several localities. Media coverage of infrastructure challenges notes that while the need for drainage upgradation has been acknowledged and some sections of drains have been relaid and covered, many critical stretches still suffer from debris accumulation and frequent blockages.
Further complicating execution is the administrative division of responsibilities. In Jammu, sewerage and drainage functions within municipal boundaries are legally the domain of the Urban Environmental Engineering Department (UEED), not the JMC directly; several schemes lie outside municipal jurisdiction and are managed by other agencies, creating coordination challenges. A municipal website note indicates that some drainage schemes extend beyond core municipal limits, necessitating rationalisation of responsibilities to avoid overburdening the JMC budget with works not under its direct control.
Beyond sanitation and drainage, illegal construction and encroachment on public land represent a parallel urban governance challenge that indirectly exacerbates civic service delivery shortfalls. Jammu has witnessed a steady rise in unauthorised constructions, including encroachments on footpaths, road setbacks, and even drainage corridors. Under prevailing urban governance frameworks and the Unified Building Bye laws, municipal authorities are responsible for regulating construction activity, issuing permits, enforcing zoning norms, and removing encroachments. The continued prevalence of unauthorised structures suggests inconsistent or insufficient regulatory oversight.
Although no official dataset directly quantifies the impact of illegal construction on sanitation outcomes, the connection is empirically evident: encroachments narrow roads, obstruct mechanical sweepers, limit access for garbage collection vehicles, and reduce available space for waste storage infrastructure. In effect, weak enforcement of building regulations compounds the difficulty of maintaining clean and functional roads, placing additional strain on municipal services.
What emerges from the data and observed practice is not a picture of total inaction, but one of partial implementation, uneven execution, and inadequate accountability mechanisms. Jammu Municipal Corporation has invested in sanitation campaigns, awareness programs, collection fleets, and material recovery infrastructure, yet the translation of these investments into consistently clean streets, fully functional drainage networks, and scientifically managed waste flows remains incomplete.
To close these gaps and realise the full potential of allocated resources, JMC must institutionalise transparent reporting of budget utilisation and project status, especially for sanitation and drainage works that directly affect citizen quality of life. Source segregation at scale must shift from voluntary civic behaviour to enforceable municipal practice, supported by both incentives and deterrents.
Cleaning operations require performance monitoring that focuses on outcomes rather than activity counts. Sanitation strategies cannot be isolated from broader urban management; effective enforcement against illegal construction and encroachment must be treated as integral to maintaining clear, accessible public spaces.
Urban cleanliness and functional infrastructure are achieved not through rankings or budget figures alone, but through consistent execution, data-backed accountability, and institutional transparency.
The available records suggest that Jammu’s sanitation challenge is not one of resource scarcity, but of strategic implementation and measurable results. Addressing it requires the Jammu Municipal Corporation to move decisively beyond rhetoric and toward verifiable urban governance that stands up to public scrutiny.
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