Srinagar, Aug. 19 -- By Syed Sammar Mehdi

Srinagar- The smell reaches the road before the waste comes into view. Stray dogs move between the piles, and children walking to a nearby school pinch their noses as they pass. Three irrigation canals wind close to the site, carrying water that farmers in Ohangam, a village in the Rathsun block of Budgam district, use for their orchards.

For two years, residents say, the Rural Development Department has treated this patch of roadside land as a dumping ground for the region's municipal solid waste, piling it up without consent, without segregation and without a single scientific safeguard.

Now the National Green Tribunal has stepped in.

The Principal Bench, led by Chairperson Justice Prakash S...