Navigating Urban Solid Waste Management Challenges in Jammu City: Institutional Framework Evaluation and Strategic SWOT-Based Policy Directions.

Rapid population growth, elevating urbanization rates and changing production and consumption patterns have aggravated solid waste management (SWM) challenges, particularly in developing nations. Jammu, a winter capital and prominent urban city in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), exemplifies these difficulties along with technological deficiencies, infrastructural inadequacies, administrative gaps and environmental and health jeopardies. The study conducts a comprehensive institutional assessment of the SWM framework in Jammu City through a structured SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Using a participatory and qualitative research design, the study identifies critical institutional strengths such as 100% waste collection efficiency, public-private partnerships, IEC initiatives and establishing bio methanation and composting units. However, systematic weaknesses include weak legal enforcement, inadequate workforce, infrastructural deficits and poor cost recovery mechanisms. Potential opportunities, such as decentralized and integrated SWM, adopting the standard waste management hierarchy, integration of informal waste workers, and waste-to-energy technologies, pose feasible avenues for improvement. Similarly, threats like floating tourist population, waste pollution, public health risks, technological paucities and public apathy hinder the sustainable outcomes. Based on the above outcomes, the study formulates SO, ST, WO, and WT-based strategies and policy interventions to foster the institutional efficiencies and align the city's SWM plan with global sustainability goals. The findings of a study are replicable in urban cities with similar governance and operational challenges. This research focuses on the need for a robust institutional framework to foster integrated, inclusive and environmentally sound SWM planning. The overall conceptual framework and key components of the study are illustrated in Fig. 1.