A section of tram lovers has sought immediate restoration of the Kidderpore-Esplanade, Galiff Street-Esplanade, Dalhousie-Shyambazar and Rajabazar-Dalhousie tram routes.
These routes are vital for those who commute to their workplaces from various corners of the city, the tram users said.
The demand for the restoration of some of the tram routes comes within days of Calcutta High Court directing the state to consider the possibility of modernising and restoring the city's tram services on select routes with the approval of various authorities, including police.
While underlining the need to arrive at a constructive solution for running trams in the city, the court had said the objective should be restoring tram services on routes that are feasible and implementing this throughout the city in the long run.
The matter will come up for hearing again on January 5.
"The Kidderpore-Esplanade tram route should be restored first. This should be followed by a clutch of key tram routes in the city's north that connect Galiff Street and Esplanade (route 8), Dalhousie with Shyambazar (route 10) and Rajabazar with Dalhousie (route 14)," Debasish Bhattacharyya, president of the Calcutta Tram Users' Association told Metro.
"We have gone through the police objections against restoring most tram routes. They are not backed by data."
Bhattacharyya is a part of a 12-member committee that the state government has set up to "examine and submit a report" to the high court on how tram services can be restored, maintained and preserved in the city.
The committee was set up in July and includes representatives of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), police and those from the transport department and the PWD.
In June, a division bench of the high court headed by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had directed the state government to set up an expert committee for the preservation of the “heritage transport”.
"There is no police objection to trams plying on the Kidderpore-Esplanade route. The transport department keeps harping that the service will be restored shortly. But to date it has not been done," Bhattacharyya said.
In a year that marks 150 years of tram services in Calcutta, the transport department has scuttled tram services on several routes, while completely doing away with the service on a number of others.
Over 116km of tram tracks exist in the city but trams only operate on 33km.
From a little over 25 routes operational in 2017, trams now run only on three routes — 5 (Shyambazar-Esplanade), 25 (Gariahat-Esplanade) and 24/29 (Ballygunge-Tollygunge).
There were six big tram depots and only two are functional.
Senior transport department officials said a meeting will be called to discuss how services on some of the tram routes can be restored following the Calcutta High Court's recent observations.
"We have yet to receive a copy of the high court's latest order. The restoration of services will depend on several factors and the observations of several agencies, including the police and the CMC," said Anshul Gupta, managing director of the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC).
Senior officers handling tram services said the finance department has recently cleared a proposal of over Rs 1 crore for procuring overhead wires for the Kidderpore-Esplanade route.
"We have had a round of inspection of the route with senior officers from the army’s Eastern Command because the route cuts through the Maidan (whose custodian is the army). A second round of inspection is likely to be held shortly," said a senior official in the transport department.
"We have also readied a tender for restoring the area around Esplanade tram depot after Metro Railway told us their work on the surface was complete."
