Three trams, decorated with flowers and Poila Baisakh motifs, rolled between Gariahat and Shyambazar on Wednesday, making a quiet yet compelling case for expanding the city’s tram network at a time when the world grapples with an energy crisis and a warming planet.
Trams are an environment-friendly mode of transport — they emit no polluting smoke and do not rely on fossil fuels, tram advocates said.
The trams first ran between Gariahat and Esplanade, then continued from Esplanade to Shyambazar, before returning to Esplanade, where the journey concluded.
“Only two tram routes are left in Calcutta — Gariahat to Esplanade and Shyambazar to Esplanade. On Wednesday, the trams ran on both these routes,” said Debashis Bhattacharya, a founder member and president of Calcutta Tram Users Association, a group of people advocating for a wider tram network in the city.
There were 33 tram routes operational in Calcutta even in 2011, said Bhattacharya.
On Wednesday, the three trams were packed with tram lovers, including nearly 50 school students.
The trams carried posters urging that the service not be phased out and instead be modernised to meet contemporary needs. “Rather than scrapping trams for being slow, the state government should upgrade the fleet. Services need to be more regular and run on a proper timetable. People enjoy travelling by trams and rely on them as a dependable mode of transport,” said a tram enthusiast.
Bhattacharya said the US-Iran conflict has triggered a global energy crisis, disrupting the fuel and natural gas supply. In an increasingly uncertain world, electrically powered trams can offer a more reliable mode of transport, he said.
“Calcutta’s poor air quality is a matter of concern. Trams do not emit polluting smoke. This is another reason why the state should embrace trams rather than phase them out,” Bhattacharya added.
The association invited candidates from various
political parties, including the Trinamool Congress, the
Left Front and the BJP, to the Gariahat tram depot on Wednesday morning before the trams began their
journey.
Since the Gariahat tram depot falls under the Ballygunge Assembly constituency, the candidates from Ballygunge were invited.
“Afreen Begum, the CPM candidate from Ballygunge and Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, the BJP candidate, came to the tram depot. But the Trinamool candidate did not turn up,” said Bhattacharya.
Snehasis Chakraborty, the transport minister in the outgoing Bengal cabinet, said in 2023 that trams would run on “four or five routes”
and “it would not be possible” to run them on all routes like before.
Chakraborty said the government acknowledged that trams were an environment-friendly mode of transport, but the city’s roads were too narrow to allow trams to run on all routes.