I first saw the garbage in 2016. 

I had driven into Poonch, a border town in Jammu and Kashmir, expecting the usual sights: checkpoints, orchards, and river cutting through the landscape. Instead, I found a municipal landfill sitting right on the riverbank, leaching filth into the water. 

The Poonch Municipal Council had chosen this spot to dump everything: household waste, medical refuse, dead animals. The smell hit you first. Then you noticed the dogs. And then you saw how close the whole mess sat to the water that thousands of people downstream drink every day.

I started writing about it. I published articles, posted videos, tagged officials on social media. The council kept dumping. I wrote more, and they kept dumping. 

By 2023, I had exhausted every local channel, so I took the matter to India’s National Green Tribunal in New Delhi. The NGT hears environmental cases and possesses the power to impose real financial penalties. I filed the petition myself, thinking a court order might succeed where journalism had failed.

The tribunal has now heard this case six times. The judges have watched the same officials promise reforms, miss deadlines, and return to make identical promises. 

Last April, the NGT ordered the municipal CEO to submit a sworn affidavit pledging to clear all legacy waste by August 31, 2025. He signed it, filed it, and then did nothing. The deadline passed, the waste remained, and fresh garbage joined the old piles. 

I submitted photographs to the court showing heavy machinery pushing refuse directly into the river during rainfall, burying some under soil, washing the rest downstream. The CEO faces the tribunal again on April 6. He has treated the court’s order like he treats the town’s waste: something to bury and forget.

The financial penalties tell their own story. 

The NGT imposed Rs 162.9 lakh for violations between October 2020 and September 2024. It added another Rs 108.9 lakh, bringing the total to Rs 2.71 crores. The municipal council paid Rs 25 lakh. That leaves Rs 2.46 crore outstanding. The tribunal ordered the deputy commissioner to auction the council’s community hall to recover the balance. An official letter dated December 23, 2025, confirms the municipal CEO knows about this auction committee. He knows it has done nothing. 

Five months have passed since that letter, and the building sits unsold. The debt stays unpaid, while the garbage remains on the riverbank.

Last November, I travelled to Poonch with volunteers from the Jammu and Kashmir Climate Action Group. We met Deputy Commissioner Ashok Sharma, his additional deputy, the municipal CEO, and senior officers from multiple departments. We brought maps, data, and a specific proposal: move waste processing to Salotari, near the Line of Control, far from the river. The officials nodded. 

They spoke about segregation programs and scientific management under the 2016 Municipal Solid Waste Rules. They shook our hands. 

But five months later, the dumping continues exactly as before. The machinery still pushes waste into the water, dead animals still rot in the open, and the river still carries contamination toward drinking water sources downstream.

The local member of the legislative assembly gave his own analysis when journalists asked about the crisis. He wanted to know why the NGT was bothering with municipal waste when illegal stone crushers operate throughout the district. 

He seemed unaware that citizens must file formal petitions to bring cases before the tribunal. He seemed equally unaware that he possesses the same right to file such a petition himself. 

His deflection speaks to a deeper rot: the habit of treating environmental enforcement as harassment rather than accountability.

This failure spans fifteen years. Multiple CEOs have cycled through the municipal council. Each inherited this problem. 

Everyone of them had the authority to fix it, but they chose to let the garbage pile higher. The current crisis represents their collective legacy: a Rs 2.71 crore penalty, a court order treated as optional, and a river that grows more polluted by the day.

The NGT will issue new orders on April 6. Based on the track record, those orders will join the stack of ignored directives unless something fundamental changes. 

Auctioning a community hall has not worked. Imposing penalties on an institution that refuses to pay has not worked. The court must now look past the municipal council as an abstract entity and toward the individuals who made these decisions. 

Every CEO who served in Poonch over the past fifteen years bears responsibility for allowing this situation to fester. They drew salaries, attended meetings, signed documents, and watched the waste accumulate. 

The pending Rs 2.46 crore penalty should follow them personally. Let the debt attach to their assets, pensions, and future employment. Let them explain to their own families why a border town’s drinking water carries traces of their indifference.

Environmental law in India has teeth when courts have the will to use them. The NGT has shown that will. 

 J&K Generates 665 MLD Sewage Per Day: Govt 

NGT Flags Open Dumping Near Kashmir’s NH-44

Now it must show something harder: the persistence to keep biting until the job finishes. 

© Kashmir Observer