Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Sept 30: Only 1,440 of the 3,253 water-supply schemes taken up under the Jal Jeevan Mission in Jammu and Kashmir had been physically completed by January 2025.
CAG said Jammu and Kashmir received Rs 5,754.42 crore against a Central allocation of Rs 9,657.20 crore during 2019-20 to 2023-24. This receipt included Rs 67.86 crore transferred to Ladakh.
After excluding that transfer, the net amount received by J&K was Rs 5,686.55 crore, leaving a shortfall of Rs 3,970.64 crore against the allocation.
These are findings of the audit report tabled today by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.
The report attributed the gap to slow utilisation of available funds and the UT’s inability to meet conditions for the release of later tranches in the initial years. It found that fund utilisation ranged from 15 per cent to 59 per cent between 2019-20 and 2022-23. The unspent balance rose from Rs 150.35 crore in March 2020 to Rs 901.92 crore in March 2023 before utilisation improved to 84 per cent in 2023-24.
The Jal Shakti Department told the audit that the Mission had faced low participation in tenders, disruption after the constitutional changes of August 2019, Covid-19 restrictions and a shortage of pipes. It said the impediments were subsequently resolved, the pace of execution picked up from 2022-23 and the Centre extended the Mission to December 2028. It also pointed out that J&K received an additional Rs 400 crore in 2023-24 over and above that year’s allocation.
The performance audit covered the period from 2019-20 to 2023-24 and was conducted between September 2024 and January 2025. It examined the State Water and Sanitation Mission, four District Water and Sanitation Missions, 11 blocks, 22 villages and 44 schemes. The four sampled districts were Anantnag, Kulgam, Doda and Kishtwar. The Department’s replies of August and October 2025 were incorporated in the report.
The Mission was launched in August 2019 to provide every rural household a functional tap connection supplying at least 55 litres per person per day of water meeting prescribed quality standards on a regular and long-term basis. Its original December 2024 deadline has since been extended to 2028.
Connections Reported but Annual Targets Missed
J&K had 18.71 lakh rural households when the Mission began, of which 5.75 lakh already had tap connections. The Department reported providing another 8.76 lakh connections during the five audit years. By March 31, 2024, it reported that 14.43 lakh households, or 77.15 per cent of the total, had functional household tap connections.
The CAG, however, found an unexplained difference of 8,022 connections between the sum of annual achievements and the cumulative coverage reported for March 2024. It also found that annual achievements varied sharply. J&K achieved 83 per cent of its connection target in 2019-20 and 93 per cent in 2020-21, but only 13 per cent in 2021-22, 6 per cent in 2022-23 and 45 per cent in 2023-24.
The audit said the Department did not maintain divisional or district-level data on the quantity of water supplied. None of the completed sampled schemes had meters or sensor-based systems to measure whether households were actually receiving the prescribed volume.
In a survey of 330 beneficiaries, all 60 people covered by five completed sampled schemes had tap connections, but the taps of 24 households had been installed outside their homes. Among 270 beneficiaries covered by incomplete schemes, 54 said they collected water from springs, streams or similar sources located half a kilometre to two kilometres away. The other 216 relied on nearby public standposts and said water was not supplied regularly.
The Department said this survey was conducted in the last quarter of 2024 when most schemes were still under execution. It said community participation had taken non-monetary forms, including help in planning, identifying sites and providing land.
Half the Schemes Complete in Four Sampled Districts
Of 853 schemes approved in the four sampled districts, 429, or 50 per cent, had been physically completed by November 2024. Completion varied widely: 249 of 396 schemes in Anantnag were complete, a rate of 63 per cent; Doda had completed 98 of 203 schemes, or 48 per cent; Kulgam 42 of 116, or 36 per cent; and Kishtwar 40 of 138, or 29 per cent.
During physical inspection, the audit found that the Haleja Lift Water Supply Scheme in Doda had been shown as complete even though its ground service reservoir and pump room were unfinished. It also found five schemes supplying water without filtration plants.
The Department cited poor tender response, slow supply of galvanised iron pipes, dry borewells in several districts, ammoniacal nitrate in 19 borewells in Kashmir, difficult terrain and delays in forest clearances. It said Haleja was supplying water to 222 households and reported that 1,484 schemes, or 46 per cent, had been completed by May 2025. In a separate reply, it said tap-connection coverage had reached 81 per cent by June 2025.
The CAG said these replies did not alter the fact that approved and allotted schemes had remained incomplete for considerable periods, delaying access to safe drinking water.
Planning System Did Not Work From the Village Upwards
The report found serious gaps in the institutional and planning structure prescribed under the Mission. The State-level Executive Committee held only one meeting during 2020-24 against 48 meetings required under the order constituting it. The Department cited numerous review meetings chaired by the Chief Secretary, Administrative Secretary and Mission Director, but the CAG said those meetings did not include all the stakeholders represented on the Executive Committee.
At district level, records initially produced to audit showed a shortfall of 41 of 48 required meetings in Doda and 47 of 48 in Kishtwar, while no District Water and Sanitation Mission meeting was recorded in Anantnag or Kulgam. The Department later claimed that meetings had been held in all four districts and that separate review meetings had taken place in Anantnag and Kulgam. The CAG said minutes or other documents were not supplied to substantiate the claim.
Village Action Plans were available for 42 of the 44 sampled schemes, but many did not record when they were prepared, approved by the Gram Sabha or submitted to district authorities. Mandatory information on water sources, past scarcity, water quality, disease, source sustainability and maintenance was missing. The Department said plans had been prepared in accordance with the guidelines, but the audit said its reply did not address the specific deficiencies.
The four sampled districts had not prepared District Action Plans in the prescribed form. They relied largely on detailed project reports for new or retrofitted schemes, omitting wider water-security planning, manpower assessment, support agencies and public-awareness activities. District Annual Action Plans were not prepared in any of the four districts during 2019-24. The State Action Plans, in turn, were prepared without properly aggregating district plans, weakening the bottom-up planning model envisaged under JJM.
The CAG also said none of the detailed project reports for the 44 sampled schemes contained all the mandatory components, including environmental-impact assessment, sustainability planning, grey-water management, risk analysis and provision for water meters or sensors.
No Maintenance Plan for Completed Assets
The audit found no operation and maintenance plan for the 429 completed schemes in the sampled districts and no mechanism to ensure trained masons, plumbers, fitters and electricians were available at village level. The Department had neither assessed district-wise skilled manpower needs nor linked with the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana for training and certification.
None of the 44 sampled schemes had been transferred to a Village Water and Sanitation Committee or Gram Panchayat, and no maintenance money had been received from JJM, Finance Commission grants or community contributions. The Department said a comprehensive operation and maintenance policy was being finalised and that the PHE Department would maintain the schemes with existing staff in the meantime.
For the 44 schemes, whose combined cost was Rs 144.82 crore, a 5 per cent community contribution would have amounted to Rs 7.24 crore. The Department assessed the contribution at Rs 1.18 crore but did not give the audit its calculations. Only 53 of the 330 surveyed beneficiaries said they had been told about the contribution, and none had contributed.
Contract Delays and Weakened Safeguards
The CAG found that tenders for eight sampled schemes were invited before administrative approval and technical sanction; four of them were tendered even before approval by the district mission. The Department accepted that tenders had, in a few cases, been issued in anticipation of approvals but said work was allotted only after approval and sanction.
Contracts for 33 of the 44 sampled schemes were awarded late, with delays ranging from two to 653 days beyond the procurement period. Agreements for 42 schemes were signed four to 638 days late, and work on 36 schemes began two to 387 days beyond the permissible period. The Department acknowledged delays and cited Covid restrictions, simultaneous tendering of a large number of schemes, poor tender response, manpower shortages, material supply and the need for permissions from road agencies.
Performance securities worth Rs 42.42 lakh for seven works expired while the works were still in progress. In another 23 schemes, the Department continued to collect security at the temporary pandemic-era rate of 3 per cent even after that relaxation had expired. Against a minimum requirement of Rs 127.56 lakh, only Rs 75.58 lakh was recovered, leaving a shortfall of Rs 51.98 lakh.
Failed Water Samples Were Not Escalated
Water-quality surveillance was another major concern. In the sampled districts, sub-divisional laboratories conducted 1.92 lakh tests against a target of 2.10 lakh during 2019-24. They declared 897 samples failed, but none was referred to a district or State laboratory for higher-level investigation.
District laboratories conducted 55,946 tests against a five-year target of 60,000 and declared 510 samples failed. These, too, were not referred to the State laboratory. The State laboratories conducted 4,441 tests during 2021-24 and reported all of them as passed, but the audit said no samples from the four sampled districts were tested there.
Community testing with field test kits covered 921 of 1,249 villages in the four districts, leaving 328 villages outside this layer of surveillance. Kulgam and Kishtwar did not receive kits according to requirement.
The Department said failed samples were few, the contamination was treatable, remedial action was taken and retesting produced compliant results, which was why the samples were not sent upward. It said more field kits were being procured for every village.
Health and Social Outcomes Could Not Be Established
The CAG said the Department did not maintain habitation-wise disease data needed to assess whether the Mission had reduced waterborne illness. The Health Department also could not provide complete data for all sampled districts. On the available figures, the audit found no significant reduction in Kishtwar, Kulgam or Anantnag. Kulgam’s reported cases rose from 2,295 in 2021-22 to 9,024 in 2023-24, while Kishtwar reported 11,640 cases in 2023-24 against 11,119 in 2019-20. Anantnag recorded 7,841 cases in 2023-24 against 6,243 in 2019-20.
The Jal Shakti Department cautioned that waterborne disease figures from the Health Department could not automatically be linked to contaminated tap water because sanitation and other factors could also cause disease. The report did not establish a causal link; its finding was that the Mission’s stated health outcome could not be fully measured or demonstrated.
The audit found that women in households covered by five completed sampled schemes no longer had to carry water from distant sources, but those in villages with incomplete schemes continued to do so. It could not link changes in girls’ school dropout or rural employment to the Mission. No formal social audit of JJM had been conducted in any of the four sampled districts.
The CAG recommended regular meetings of the State, district and village institutions; genuine bottom-up planning; time-bound completion of unfinished schemes; a clear framework for awarding works and procuring material; and stronger water-quality and social-audit systems.
JAMMU, Sept 30: Only 1,440 of the 3,253 water-supply schemes taken up under the Jal Jeevan Mission in Jammu and Kashmir had been physically completed by January 2025.
CAG said Jammu and Kashmir received Rs 5,754.42 crore against a Central allocation of Rs 9,657.20 crore during 2019-20 to 2023-24. This receipt included Rs 67.86 crore transferred to Ladakh. After excluding that transfer, the net amount received by J&K was Rs 5,686.55 crore, leaving a shortfall of Rs 3,970.64 crore against the allocation.
The report attributed the gap to slow utilisation of available funds and the UT’s inability to meet conditions for the release of later tranches in the initial years. It found that fund utilisation ranged from 15 per cent to 59 per cent between 2019-20 and 2022-23. The unspent balance rose from Rs 150.35 crore in March 2020 to Rs 901.92 crore in March 2023 before utilisation improved to 84 per cent in 2023-24.
Jal Shakti Department told the audit that the Mission had faced low participation in tenders, disruption after the constitutional changes of August 2019, Covid-19 restrictions and a shortage of pipes. It said the impediments were subsequently resolved, the pace of execution picked up from 2022-23 and the Centre extended the Mission to December 2028. It also pointed out that J&K received an additional Rs 400 crore in 2023-24 over and above that year’s allocation.
The performance audit covered the period from 2019-20 to 2023-24 and was conducted between September 2024 and January 2025. It examined the State Water and Sanitation Mission, four District Water and Sanitation Missions, 11 blocks, 22 villages and 44 schemes. The four sampled districts were Anantnag, Kulgam, Doda and Kishtwar. The Department’s replies of August and October 2025 were incorporated in the report.
The Mission was launched in August 2019 to provide every rural household a functional tap connection supplying at least 55 litres per person per day of water meeting prescribed quality standards on a regular and long-term basis. Its original December 2024 deadline has since been extended to 2028.
Connections Reported but Annual Targets Missed
J&K had 18.71 lakh rural households when the Mission began, of which 5.75 lakh already had tap connections. The Department reported providing another 8.76 lakh connections during the five audit years. By March 31, 2024, it reported that 14.43 lakh households, or 77.15 per cent of the total, had functional household tap connections.
CAG, however, found an unexplained difference of 8,022 connections between the sum of annual achievements and the cumulative coverage reported for March 2024. It also found that annual achievements varied sharply. J&K achieved 83 per cent of its connection target in 2019-20 and 93 per cent in 2020-21, but only 13 per cent in 2021-22, 6 per cent in 2022-23 and 45 per cent in 2023-24.
The audit said the Department did not maintain divisional or district-level data on the quantity of water supplied. None of the completed sampled schemes had meters or sensor-based systems to measure whether households were actually receiving the prescribed volume.
In a survey of 330 beneficiaries, all 60 people covered by five completed sampled schemes had tap connections, but the taps of 24 households had been installed outside their homes. Among 270 beneficiaries covered by incomplete schemes, 54 said they collected water from springs, streams or similar sources located half a kilometre to two kilometres away. The other 216 relied on nearby public standposts and said water was not supplied regularly.
The Department said this survey was conducted in the last quarter of 2024 when most schemes were still under execution. It said community participation had taken non-monetary forms, including help in planning, identifying sites and providing land.
Half the Schemes Complete in Four Sampled Districts
Of 853 schemes approved in the four sampled districts, 429, or 50 per cent, had been physically completed by November 2024. Completion varied widely: 249 of 396 schemes in Anantnag were complete, a rate of 63 per cent; Doda had completed 98 of 203 schemes, or 48 per cent; Kulgam 42 of 116, or 36 per cent; and Kishtwar 40 of 138, or 29 per cent.
During physical inspection, the audit found that the Haleja Lift Water Supply Scheme in Doda had been shown as complete even though its ground service reservoir and pump room were unfinished. It also found five schemes supplying water without filtration plants.
The Department cited poor tender response, slow supply of galvanised iron pipes, dry borewells in several districts, ammoniacal nitrate in 19 borewells in Kashmir, difficult terrain and delays in forest clearances. It said Haleja was supplying water to 222 households and reported that 1,484 schemes, or 46 per cent, had been completed by May 2025. In a separate reply, it said tap-connection coverage had reached 81 per cent by June 2025.
The CAG said these replies did not alter the fact that approved and allotted schemes had remained incomplete for considerable periods, delaying access to safe drinking water.
Planning System Did Not Work From the Village Upwards
The report found serious gaps in the institutional and planning structure prescribed under the Mission. The State-level Executive Committee held only one meeting during 2020-24 against 48 meetings required under the order constituting it. The Department cited numerous review meetings chaired by the Chief Secretary, Administrative Secretary and Mission Director, but the CAG said those meetings did not include all the stakeholders represented on the Executive Committee.
At district level, records initially produced to audit showed a shortfall of 41 of 48 required meetings in Doda and 47 of 48 in Kishtwar, while no District Water and Sanitation Mission meeting was recorded in Anantnag or Kulgam. The Department later claimed that meetings had been held in all four districts and that separate review meetings had taken place in Anantnag and Kulgam. The CAG said minutes or other documents were not supplied to substantiate the claim.
Village Action Plans were available for 42 of the 44 sampled schemes, but many did not record when they were prepared, approved by the Gram Sabha or submitted to district authorities. Mandatory information on water sources, past scarcity, water quality, disease, source sustainability and maintenance was missing. The Department said plans had been prepared in accordance with the guidelines, but the audit said its reply did not address the specific deficiencies.
The four sampled districts had not prepared District Action Plans in the prescribed form. They relied largely on detailed project reports for new or retrofitted schemes, omitting wider water-security planning, manpower assessment, support agencies and public-awareness activities. District Annual Action Plans were not prepared in any of the four districts during 2019-24. The State Action Plans, in turn, were prepared without properly aggregating district plans, weakening the bottom-up planning model envisaged under JJM.
The CAG also said none of the detailed project reports for the 44 sampled schemes contained all the mandatory components, including environmental-impact assessment, sustainability planning, grey-water management, risk analysis and provision for water meters or sensors.
No Maintenance Plan for Completed Assets
The audit found no operation and maintenance plan for the 429 completed schemes in the sampled districts and no mechanism to ensure trained masons, plumbers, fitters and electricians were available at village level. The Department had neither assessed district-wise skilled manpower needs nor linked with the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana for training and certification.
None of the 44 sampled schemes had been transferred to a Village Water and Sanitation Committee or Gram Panchayat, and no maintenance money had been received from JJM, Finance Commission grants or community contributions. The Department said a comprehensive operation and maintenance policy was being finalised and that the PHE Department would maintain the schemes with existing staff in the meantime.
For the 44 schemes, whose combined cost was Rs 144.82 crore, a 5 per cent community contribution would have amounted to Rs 7.24 crore. The Department assessed the contribution at Rs 1.18 crore but did not give the audit its calculations. Only 53 of the 330 surveyed beneficiaries said they had been told about the contribution, and none had contributed.
Contract Delays and Weakened Safeguards
The CAG found that tenders for eight sampled schemes were invited before administrative approval and technical sanction; four of them were tendered even before approval by the district mission. The Department accepted that tenders had, in a few cases, been issued in anticipation of approvals but said work was allotted only after approval and sanction.
Contracts for 33 of the 44 sampled schemes were awarded late, with delays ranging from two to 653 days beyond the procurement period. Agreements for 42 schemes were signed four to 638 days late, and work on 36 schemes began two to 387 days beyond the permissible period. The Department acknowledged delays and cited Covid restrictions, simultaneous tendering of a large number of schemes, poor tender response, manpower shortages, material supply and the need for permissions from road agencies.
Performance securities worth Rs 42.42 lakh for seven works expired while the works were still in progress. In another 23 schemes, the Department continued to collect security at the temporary pandemic-era rate of 3 per cent even after that relaxation had expired. Against a minimum requirement of Rs 127.56 lakh, only Rs 75.58 lakh was recovered, leaving a shortfall of Rs 51.98 lakh.
Failed Water Samples Were Not Escalated
Water-quality surveillance was another major concern. In the sampled districts, sub-divisional laboratories conducted 1.92 lakh tests against a target of 2.10 lakh during 2019-24. They declared 897 samples failed, but none was referred to a district or State laboratory for higher-level investigation.
District laboratories conducted 55,946 tests against a five-year target of 60,000 and declared 510 samples failed. These, too, were not referred to the State laboratory. The State laboratories conducted 4,441 tests during 2021-24 and reported all of them as passed, but the audit said no samples from the four sampled districts were tested there.
Community testing with field test kits covered 921 of 1,249 villages in the four districts, leaving 328 villages outside this layer of surveillance. Kulgam and Kishtwar did not receive kits according to requirement.
The Department said failed samples were few, the contamination was treatable, remedial action was taken and retesting produced compliant results, which was why the samples were not sent upward. It said more field kits were being procured for every village.
Health and Social Outcomes Could Not Be Established
The CAG said the Department did not maintain habitation-wise disease data needed to assess whether the Mission had reduced waterborne illness. The Health Department also could not provide complete data for all sampled districts. On the available figures, the audit found no significant reduction in Kishtwar, Kulgam or Anantnag. Kulgam’s reported cases rose from 2,295 in 2021-22 to 9,024 in 2023-24, while Kishtwar reported 11,640 cases in 2023-24 against 11,119 in 2019-20. Anantnag recorded 7,841 cases in 2023-24 against 6,243 in 2019-20.
The Jal Shakti Department cautioned that waterborne disease figures from the Health Department could not automatically be linked to contaminated tap water because sanitation and other factors could also cause disease. The report did not establish a causal link; its finding was that the Mission’s stated health outcome could not be fully measured or demonstrated.
The audit found that women in households covered by five completed sampled schemes no longer had to carry water from distant sources, but those in villages with incomplete schemes continued to do so. It could not link changes in girls’ school dropout or rural employment to the Mission. No formal social audit of JJM had been conducted in any of the four sampled districts.
The CAG recommended regular meetings of the State, district and village institutions; genuine bottom-up planning; time-bound completion of unfinished schemes; a clear framework for awarding works and procuring material; and stronger water-quality and social-audit systems.
