Work on a water reservoir and pumping station at Marcus Square, which is being planned as a substitute for the reservoir under Mohammad Ali Park that needs immediate shutdown and repairs, could not be started because of “political trouble,” mayor Firhad Hakim told the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s house on Wednesday.

Hakim was responding to a councillor who raised the issue of the Marcus Square project not taking off yet.

The mayor said he will take the administration’s help to get the work going after Kali Puja. He has already visited the site twice and spoken to people to resolve differences, he said.

Biswarup Dey, councillor of Ward 48, said at the civic body’s house, the monthly meeting of all councillors, that neither the repairs of the reservoir at Mohammad Ali Park were going ahead nor the new reservoir at Marcus Square was being built.

“As a result, residents of Borough V (College Street-Burrabazar area) are suffering from water scarcity. I will urge the mayor to look into this matter with urgency. Neither the repairs of Mohammad Ali Park have started, nor the construction of the Marcus Square station has started,” Dey said.

Responding to Dey’s concern, Hakim admitted that the Marcus Square project is yet to take off. “There is a political problem there. I went there twice. We will start the work with the help of the administration,” he said.

He later told journalists that the people at Marcus Square told him they would allow the work to proceed during his visits, but the same people created obstacles when officials and engineers went there to start the project.

The original capacity of the reservoir under Mohammad Ali Park was 4 million gallons. The one at Marcus Square, too, is supposed to store 4 million gallons of water.

The British-era reservoir under Mohammad Ali Park, which caved in in 2019, will not be restored until a fresh health assessment of the structure is done. To do so, it has to be shut down, which is possible only after an alternative storage facility is available.

The Marcus Square facility will cost ₹42 crore. The KMC’s house approved the project in March 2024.

According to an official of the KMC, after the project was approved, they floated a tender, selected the best bidder and also gave the company the work order.

“The work order was given about a year ago, but no construction has started so far. There is a local dispute that needs to be resolved,” he said.