The iconic trams of Kolkata completed the milestone of 150 years this year, weathering many vicissitudes along the way.
Being one of the cheapest modes of public transport, trams are still popular around the city, but despite this and despite their historical significance, the city’s trams seem to constantly be in danger of being consigned to oblivion.
With the government recently deciding not to revive disused tram routes, once again the survival of this heritage is threatened. Asked if trams were still relevant, keeping in mind the advent of other forms of transport, Chanchal Das, now a retired senior staff of Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) is adamant that they are. “Trams are still in demand. They are convenient especially for senior citizens, college and university students.”
Started on 24 February, 1873 from the Armenian Ghat to Sealdah, the first trams were used to ferry goods and were pulled by horses. Their low utilisation caused the services to be discontinued 10 months later, on 20 November.
On 27 March, 1902, the first electric tramcar ran from Esplanade to Kidderpore. In 1976, the Calcutta Tramway services were nationalised.
Today, only 6-7 tram routes are functional out of the erstwhile 38. In 1990, the city’s trams faced their first threat when the then transport minister, Shyamal Chakraborty, announced the government’s decision to close down tram services.
About this, the president of the Calcutta Tram Users Association (CTUA) Dr Debashish Bhattacharya, said: “The then transport minister declared the trams as obsolete. He claimed that tram maintenance was expensive, ignoring the fact that the subsidy per passenger per kilometre for buses was higher than for the trams. Hence the entire threat of tram closure started on a lie. Huge portions of the tram depots at Tollygunge, Kalighat, Ghalib Street, Kidderpore and others were sold off. Obviously, there was a huge difference between the actual value and sale prices of those lands. This was the actual cause, corruption.”
Rudranil Roychowdhury, another working member of CTUA said: “Since the shutdown of the Howrah Bridge tram services, the Calcutta trams once more faced the threat of extinction. The government cancelled more routes. But thanks to Roberto (Roberto D’Andrea, a former Melbourne-based tram conductor) the tram services managed to survive this long. His initiative in collaboration with the Melbourne Tramway organisation, the ‘Calcutta-Melbourne Tramway Friendship’ was organised in 1996 with the supportive intervention of the Australian and Indian Embassies. It was a huge success. Both the Australian and Indian governments, as well as the West Bengal government, got involved in this and government-sponsored ‘Tramjatra’ was started in 2001.”
One of the employees of CTC in Esplanade Tram depot, who preferred to remain anonymous said that he believed the primary cause of the decline in the tram services in Kolkata is the major scarcity of manpower to run the trams.