wl-7007-NIMBY and Its Ever-diminishing Returns: Overcoming Public Opposition to Siting of Sanitation Infrastructure in Kerala

NIMBY is a popular prism to describe conflicts with local inhabitants in land-use issues, which are recognised as necessary but not within the premises of the individual/community. In the broader context of public opposition to setting up sanitation infrastructure emerging as a major urban planning conundrum in Kerala, this paper engages with critical literature on NIMBY to delineate the variegated character of the phenomenon in the state. Highlighting the emerging contradictions in Kerala’s public action legacy, which is constraining the state’s autonomy in policy matters, it is argued that the local communities diminishing trust in the state - a legacy of the striking failure of state’s solid waste management regime – is the crucial underlying issue in the sector. The paper argues that a narrow approach to diagnosing reasons for public opposition, detached from broader economic and institutional factors, has precluded alternative policy pathways, resulting in sub-optimal environmental and social outcomes.