Srinagar, Sept. 8 -- A traffic constable at Lal Chowk does something the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2026 have yet to manage.

He stands where people can see him, and when a driver runs the light, he writes the challan on the spot.

The driver grumbles, pays, and tells his neighbour about it that evening.

By the next morning, three more cars have stopped at the same signal that they would otherwise have ignored.

Enforcement, in this small and stubborn way, teaches a city how to behave.

Kashmir's waste system has no equivalent figure standing at its own crossroads, and that absence is the real story behind a set of rules that, on paper, promise to fix how the region handles its garbage.

The new SWM Rules, notified by the Union Mini...