Srinagar, Sept. 22 -- Sixty-three per cent of the 3,253 water supply and retrofitting schemes under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in Jammu and Kashmir are non-operational despite an expenditure of around Rs.7,000 crore, a 13-member House committee report tabled in the assembly on Monday said.

The committee, headed by retired justice Hasnain Masoodi, found "gross negligence and irregularities" in the implementation of the Centre's flagship rural drinking water scheme and recommended a high-level audit of all projects to fix responsibility on officials and engineers.

The report cited poor maintenance, substandard civil works, irregularities in laying pipelines and awarding contracts, sidelining of panchayati raj institutions, inaccurate re...