The state government has acquired around 10km of copper wire for overhead cables that supply electricity to tramcars, as a step towards restoring the Kidderpore-Esplanade tram route, officials in the transport department said.
The overhead cables snapped during Cyclone Amphan in May 2020 and have not been restored since apparently because the state government was unsure about restoring the route.
The move to acquire cables followed a nod from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the city police about restoring the Kidderpore-Esplanade tram route, which cuts through the Maidan. The police and the civic officials have told the transport department that they have no problem if the route is restored.
Kolkata mayor Firhad Haikm had in December said the state government was keen on running trams on the Kidderpore-Esplanade route and wanted to remove tracks from stretches where there was no possibility of running trams again.
“This is a special type of copper wire that will be able to conduct high-voltage electricity without a break and cost a little over Rs 1 crore,” a senior transport department official overseeing tram operations in the city said. “Several poles and brackets damaged along the tram route need to be restored as well.”
Senior transport officials said merely acquiring overhead wires did not mean the route was ready for operations. That would have to wait for a reply from the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited and consulting agency RITES on whether a part of the tram tracks would be blocked for Metro work.
“A part of the area near L-20 bus stand, opposite Bidhan Market in Esplanade, will be taken up by RVNL for the construction of the Esplanade interchange on the Joka-Esplanade Metro route. There is a possibility that one of the lines of the Kidderpore-Esplanade tram route will get covered during the work,” the transport official said.
“We have sought details of the proposed plan from RITES and RVNL to know whether the tram route can be made operational during the construction of the Esplanade interchange.”
The transport department has completely stopped tram services on several routes.
Over 116km of tram tracks exist in the city but trams operate on only 33km of those tracks.
From around 25 routes operational in 2017, trams now run on only three routes — 24/29 (Tollygunge-Ballygunge), 25 (Gariahat-Esplanade) and 5 (Shyambazar-Esplanade).
Tram enthusiasts have demanded the restoration of tram services on many more routes such as Galiff Street-Esplanade, Dalhousie-Shyambazar and Rajabazar-Dalhousie. These routes remain vital for passengers trying to commute to their places of work from different corners of the city, tram users said.
“Trams routes in the city’s north that connect Galiff Street and Esplanade, Dalhousie with Shyambazar and Rajabazar with Dalhousie should be revived immediately along with the Kidderpore-Esplanade route,” said Debasish Bhattacharyya of the Calcutta Tram Users’ Association.