Striving for relevance: Kolkata trams get a drive in a slowing world

Ananda Bhowmick is a lover of all things quaint and Kolkata. The 24-year-old development professional has been lamenting the decline of trams, which he used to hop on and off between Ballygunge and Tollygunge as a child growing up in south Kolkata.

This April, he came across a group that was dedicated to the trams in the city. “I came across the Calcutta Trams Users' Association (CTUA) on Facebook and joined immediately. In September, when the group announced an event to campaign for reviving and preserving trams, I decided to chip in,” says Bhowmick, adding that he now takes as many trams as he can.

The association’s event at the Kalighat depot on September 28 highlighted how trams were being phased out from the city, and the utility of this eco-friendly means of transport in a post-Covid world.

The group has over 18,000 followers who want to resurrect the trams. But the campaign for these outmoded vehicles unique to Kolkata is a long one, says Debasish Bhattacharya, president of CTUA.

The association, formed in 2016, brought together different people who had been championing the same cause. “My journey campaigning for trams began in 1991, when the West Bengal government announced that tram companies will run buses to make profits. One could see that buses were not making profits either,” says Bhattacharya, a scientist then working with the city-based Indian Institute of Chemical Biology.

Despite the campaigns, trams have been disappearing from the streets of Kolkata. From 37 routes covering 70 km in the 1960s, only six routes covering about 20 km are operational now. The number of functional trams has come down from about 180 in 2011 to 37 in 2018, and less than 20 now. 

In the 1960s, several big cities across the world had planned to do away with trams, Bhattacharya says. But by the 1990s, cities like Lisbon and Melbourne realised the importance of this cleaner and safer mode of transport and were bringing it back. “On the other hand, the then transport minister of West Bengal had announced that trams will die a natural death,” he says.

Back in the ’90s, trams were still common. Those who wanted to take an early morning train, older people who are more at ease with the trundling trams, or the artisans of Kumortoli, Kolkata’s Durga idol making hub, who need to carry heavy loads, found trams convenient. “As a tribute, the artisans have also designed a tea shop as a tram,” says Bhattacharya.

The government of late has promoted trams with air-conditioned additions and a recent tram that boasts a library. A pandemic, according to Bhattacharya, has made them even more relevant. “We find it very important to remind people how spacious and tall these carriages are, and that can actually ensure distancing even in a public commute. Moreover, an increasing number of studies indicate how pollution can help spread the novel coronavirus."

He points out that rolling out a few showpiece trams won't work unless there is a model to make them profitable.

In fact, profitability and awareness are key to revive trams, feels Kamal Banerjee, a member of the industrial heritage committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a conservation body. 

“There are straight thoroughfares in the city such as Tollygunge to Rashbehari and Park Circus. But for some reason these have remained closed for a long time,” he says. 

Banerjee says that in India conservation often translates into modernising the old, but European countries that lead in conservation efforts stress retaining older structures. “There are beautiful old wooden models of trams that remain unused in Kolkata. These spacious bogeys can evoke the feeling of true heritage and pull crowds.”

Banerjee, however, adds that no heritage conservation can be successful without taking issues of employment and economics into consideration.

“If we need to revive trams, we will also need to take into account that they will eat into the rider number of autos. Unless we work out a system that provides some respite for them too, it may remain as a pain point,” he says.

Bhattacharya agrees that with merely a few functional routes, it is tough to hardsell trams as an effective alternative. It would also require awareness campaigns. 

While the CTUA continues campaign initiatives, such as a session in Bidhan Nagar College next month, its online reach has never been wider.

“Activities on our social media pages have led to a surge of support. We have had more than a thousand followers in the last few months. This has also happened through tie-ups with other groups like Bus-o-pedia, which promotes buses in the city,” says Anurag Mitra, who handles social media for the association.

While effective policy changes still seem distant, some, like Chaiti Banerjee of Shyam Bazar, have been newly inspired to take fresh steps after she attended a few events. “It is tough with hardly any routes connecting the arterial parts of the city, but I make it a point to take the tram at every opportunity I get,” she says.