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DHARAMSHALA, India — “Malaria is on the rise and we can’t bear the infestation of mosquitoes. My produce has gone bad and we fall sick because of the polluted water,” complains 59-year-old Simlo Devi, pointing at a huge dumping site. At the entrance of her town, Sudher, a growing junkyard threatens its 1,500 villagers. Rains seep muck into its water bodies and in the dry season, heaps of solid waste catch fire as they did last June.

“Illegal dumping has happened for decades, but it’s grown in the last three years,” Devi says.

In 2015, Sudher’s neighboring town of Dharamshala — known worldwide as the Dalai’s Lama home base — was appointed one of the hundred “smart cities” that the Indian government vowed to create by 2022. Joint public-private funds totalling $300 million are expected to provide the city with uninterrupted power, water supply, Internet, eco-friendly facilities and modern services for its 70,000 residents and the 15,000-odd tourists who visit this scenic hilly enclave in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, at the foothills of the Himalayas.