Tram services between Tollygunge and Ballygunge, one of the three surviving tram routes in Calcutta, have remained stalled for more than three months now and the government might be planning to scrap the route, a group of tram lovers said on Sunday.
A government official denied that the route would be shut down.
The Calcutta Tram Users Association, a group of Calcuttans advocating for a wider tram network, alleged that the state government had stopped convening meetings of a committee set up by Calcutta High Court to find ways to preserve trams.
The services on route 24/29 (Tollygunge-Ballygunge) were stopped in August as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) was strengthening the underground water supply lines along a stretch of SP Mukherjee Road, between the Rashbehari crossing and the Tollygunge railway bridge.
The project required digging of the road, which was part of the 24/29 route.
“The water supply work has been completed but the tram services have not
resumed in all these months,” said Debashis Bhattacharyya, a founder member of the
Calcutta Tram Users Association (CTUA).
“The route was popular among commuters and a lot of people would avail of the services on the route,” said a member of the association.
“The road has been restored, a trial run was conducted but the tram services have not resumed. We met officials of the transport department who told us that the road restoration was not done well and so trams could not run through the stretch. They said the KMC has to redo the work,” said Bhattacharyya.
A senior KMC official told Metro on Sunday that the transport department must do the road restoration work near the tram tracks.
“We are not experts on tram tracks. The transport department must fix the road near the tracks so that trams don’t face any problems while moving through the stretch. The KMC and the transport department both are government agencies, so who will pay for the work is not an issue. Whatever the government decides will be done,” said the official.
When asked about the matter, a senior official in the transport department said the government wants to run trams on route 24/29.
“As of now, our mandate is to run three routes. These are 24/29, 5 (Shyambazar-Esplanade) and 25 (Gariahat-Esplanade). We will soon run trams on route 24/29,” the official said.
The transport department, he said, is now working on running a service between Esplanade and the Maidan.
Members of CTUA, however, are worried that with the 24/29 route currently inoperative, the government may shut down the remaining two functional tram routes as well.
“We fear the government will cite some logic and shut down these two remaining services, too,” said Sagnik Gupta, another member of the CTUA.
In September, Bengal’s transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty had said the government would run trams only on a stretch between Esplanade and the Maidan.
Calcutta’s mayor Firhad Hakim said the next day that the government wanted trams only as a heritage mode of transport. “The trams would move between the Victoria Memorial and Esplanade, through the Race Course. We will have joyrides. There is Metro for people’s needs,” Hakim had said.
Calcutta’s trams celebrated 150 years last year.
A high court bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had in June last year directed the state to set up within three weeks an “expert committee” for the preservation of the “heritage transport”.
The committee has not met since January, said a member.
The high court has also barred Calcutta Tramways Company from selling any property till further orders.