Once symbolic of old Calcutta, trams may halt in their tracks

For 150 years, they have been part of every picture postcard, the living symbol of the romance of a city.

They started trundling through the streets in 1873, criss-crossing at busy traffic signals, first populated by carriages, and now by sedans and electric vehicles.

They framed the growth of a metropolis, from Calcutta to Kolkata, from corner shop addas to glass edifice malls, a constant reminder of what once was, but still very much a part of the city's present. Slow and measured, dwindling and dilapidated, increasingly out of place, but a running, functioning part of the city's public transport apparatus.

Until now.

In 2024, Kolkata's iconic trams may find themselves phased out of public consciousness, relegated to a "heritage joyride" in one corner of the city.

And, though activists are determined to stave off this change and approach the courts, the government's mind appears to be made up.

In early 2023, the Kolkata traffic police prepared a report, sent to the state transport secretary in May, which said that though the tram is "cheap, environment friendly, and has heritage value, it is no longer a viable (transition port) option for an overcrowded city like Kolkata".

This report is now part of record in two separate public interest litigations in the Calcutta high court, filed in 2021 and 2022, and now being heard concurrently, that sought that the tram system be resuscitated.

In August 2023, the bench hearing the matter, headed by chief justice TS Sivagnanam, constituted a committee, headed by the chairman of the West Bengal Transport Corporation, to look at ways that trams could be modernised, with the next hearing scheduled on January 8.

But the West Bengal government seems to have made up its mind; trams in Kolkata have now run their course, and need to be confined to one "heritage route"; a relic of the past. "We have already told the court that the tram will operate only on one track as heritage. We are not withdrawing them," said Snehasis Chakraborty, West Bengal transport minister.