Mayor Firhad Hakim will chair a meeting of senior officials from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the Metro Railway on Friday to discuss challenges facing the construction of the Barrackpore Metro, where construction is yet to start.

One of the challenges that has delayed the 12.5km-long Metro (Pink Line) is the failure of the civic body and the Metro to find a mutually agreeable solution on how and where to shift the water transmission lines running between Palta water treatment plant and Tallah water reservoir.

There are five separate transmission lines, and at least three of them have to be shifted to lay the foundation for the elevated metro railway tracks, a KMC official said.

The project was announced by Mamata Banerjee in 2010 when she was the railway minister. Since then, nothing has moved because the KMC refused to shift the underground utilities on BT Road.

The Palta water treatment plant, which produces 240 million gallons of potable water every day, is still the largest in Calcutta. The water supplied from Palta serves the entire north Calcutta, almost all of central Calcutta, barring small areas, and a part of south Calcutta (up to Bhowanipore). The water is also supplied to Bidhannagar, Lake Town and South Dum Dum.

“Metro Railway will present a plan on how they want to go ahead with the work. Senior engineers and officials from Metro Railway are supposed to join. We will have to replace the water supply transmission lines on the entire stretch between Palta water treatment plant and Tallah water reservoir and it will involve a huge investment,” mayor Firhad Hakim said on Wednesday.

P. Uday Kumar Reddy, the general manager of Metro Railway, confirmed having received a letter from KMC. “We are looking forward to a breakthrough of the logjam,” said Reddy.

Metro sources said the work cannot start till the water supply lines are shifted. “We have also submitted a preliminary plan to the KMC,” said a Metro Railway official.

KMC sources said that though Metro Railway will build tracks between Dunlop and Chiria More in Barrackpore, the water supply transmission lines have to be replaced on a longer stretch.

“If new transmission lines are placed underground between Dunlop and Chiria More it will increase the pressure of water flowing towards Tallah, but the lines between Dunlop and Tallah are old and their diameters have shrunk over the years. If we do not replace the transmission lines between Dunlop and Tallah, the increased pressure of water will damage the old pipes,” said a KMC official.

Officials of the state public works department (PWD), the custodian of BT Road, will also attend Friday’s meeting.

There is a Metro station in Baranagar, which is part of the New Garia-Dakshineswar route. A new line will branch out from Baranagar and go to Barrackpore.

Metro reported on Friday that the proposed Kidderpore Metro station has finally received clearance from the state government. The government’s alleged refusal to allow construction at Alipore’s Bodyguard Lines had stalled the construction of the station. After a series of negotiations and a revised station layout, a breakthrough came during a recent meeting between railway representatives and senior officials at the state secretariat.