What's more, Tourism minister Manab Mukherjee said Rs 5 crore, sanctioned by the Centre as part of the development project, may have to be returned if the "pandas" and temple authorities do not cooperate and let Corporation official into the temple.

On Monday, temple representatives failed to turn up at a meeting called by the state government to defuse the situation.

The Rs 79-crore development project was planned in 2004, with the Union government and the NGO International Foundation for Sustainable Development (IFSD) as the funding agencies.

Mukherjee said the Centre has already sanctioned Rs 5 crore, and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has been "assigned to start the first phase of development. We are communicating with the temple's trust for five months, but there has been no response till date".

The first phase of the project is construction of an administrative building at Kalighat temple.

"KMC is the executing agency, and we tried talking to them (temple management)," Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said. But since "the High Court has intervened, we are waiting. The (administrative) building is supposed to be the office from where rest of the work will be carried out." Mukherjee said the state government is ready to do the needful for re-development and restoration of Kalighat temple complex, but added that the Rs 5-crore fund may have to be refused if the Kalighat Temple Trust fails to cooperate.

Approximately Rs 62 lakh is earmarked for construction of the administrative building, while over Rs 4 crore has been allocated for re-development and restoration of the Kalighat temple complex. A further Rs 32 lakh is to be spent on construction of 26 kiosks, officials said.

While KMC has not been able to implement the first phase of the reconstruction project, officials said it has meant decisions on rest of the funding, to be availed through IFSD, are also slow.