Kolkata begins mourning as the tram appears set for its final halt

West Bengal government plans to eliminate iconic Kolkata tram despite public outcry and court intervention, sparking emotional reactions.

After the R.G. Kar Hospital rape-murder, it is now the impending exit of the iconic Kolkata tram that’s occupying the minds of the people in the city, with emotional posts pouring out on social media.

While the West Bengal government has long allowed this old, environment-friendly mode of transport to die a slow death, with the number of tram routes reducing to almost next to nothing in just about a decade, there has hardly been any public reaction until the recent remarks by State’s Transport Minister Snehasis Chakraborty that the State Government was going to do away with the tram while retaining only one route for tourism.

The matter, at the moment, is in the Calcutta High Court which formed an advisory committee on June 21, 2023 and asked for a report on how tram services could be restored, maintained and preserved in Kolkata. The State Government, far from taking any steps towards the restoration, has now made its stand very clear that it no longer wants the 151-year-old tram in the city.

“The transport minister has been talking about this for the past one year. His two primary complaints are that​ the tram is a slow-moving mode of transport, which leads to traffic jams, and that there is far less road space in Kolkata than in other cities,” Mahadeb Shi, general secretary of CTUA, or Calcutta Tram Users’ Association, told The Hindu.

“I would like to ask the honourable minister, if out of 10 lakh motor vehicles there are now only 10 working trams, how are they causing traffic jam? For the sake of argument, even if you restore the entire tram service, you would still have only 150 trams compared to 10 lakh motor vehicles. His argument is without merit,” he added.

“In reality, trams should be given priority in crowded cities as this is a mass transport vehicle. Trams in Kolkata can run 40 km per hour, thus his other point (that it is slow-moving) is equally without merit. All issues will be resolved if the minister, mayor, and the traffic police learn how to properly manage traffic in a metropolis the size of Kolkata. The majority of Kolkata residents wish to see the tram return in its entirety. I have no doubt that they won’t let it end here and will struggle till the very end,” Mr. Shi said.

CTUA president Debasish Bhattacharyya, a retired scientist who, along Mr. Shi, is part of the court-formed advisory committee, is highly disturbed by the minister’s remarks. “I am in denial mode, for my own existence, that trams will be removed from the city. We are far more equipped in favour of trams compared to the fabricated arguments put forward by the authorities,” said Mr. Bhattacharyya, who has long held the view that Kolkata tramway was a living industrial heritage eligible for UNESCO tag.