Tram enthusiasts ask cops to review and reintroduce non-operational South Kolkata routes

Kolkata: Members of an association of tram users and enthusiasts have written to Kolkata Police to “review and give a public response” to the reintroduction of routes in south Kolkata.

They have demanded that two routes between Esplanade and Tollygunge — one via Ballygunge and another via Kidderpore — should be revived immediately.

The cops have responded by saying “trams should not be blocking other vehicles” and they were ready to help if “tram movement does not hamper the movement of other vehicles”.

The letter stated: “Transport department, KMDA and Kolkata Traffic Police need to wake up immediately and revive these highly popular routes with the new AC & Non-AC single bogie tramcars, which have been introduced on other routes of north and central Kolkata. A review and public response is expected from the DC (traffic) on this critical subject.”

Tram tracks on Sealdah Bridge and RG Kar Bridge have been levelled by applying pitch while overhead tram wires have been taken off on Lenin Sarani between Wellington and Moulali.

Several tram routes across the city have become defunct in the past few years owing to different reasons. While routes of eco-friendly trams in Esplanade and Dalhousie have been truncated owing to the construction of East West metro since 2016, the service has been discontinued between Esplanade and Belgachia and Esplanade and Rajabazar and Esplanade and Bidhananagar owing to the bad condition of the RG Kar and Sealdah bridges. Several routes in north and south Kolkata were discontinued owing to “congestion”. Some of the very routes where trams are operational are Esplanade-Shyambazar, Esplanade-Nonapukur, Esplanade-Khidderpore and Tollygunge-Ballygunge.

“The road congestion being an issue, we have always tried to point out that trams should not be blocking the other vehicles. But if smart road engineering can be a solution where the tram movement does not hamper the movement of other vehicles, we are always ready to help,” said a top official ay Lalbazar.