Kolkata: Braving the rain on Saturday evening, around 500 citizens from different walks of life took to streets on Saturday, demanding ‘justice’ for the city’s 151-year-old tram service that is feared to trundle towards its last leg of journey.
The state had announced its decision last month about the discontinuation of the service, barring the Esplanade-Kidderpore route.
Members of Calcutta Tram Users Association (CTUA) took out a rally from near Vidyasagar’s statue at College Square to Shyambazar with placards in protest against the govt decision.
Now, Kolkata is the only Indian city that boasts of the tram network as the brakes had been slammed on the service in Chennai in 1953, followed by Delhi in 1963 and Mumbai in 1964.
After Independence, the city had about 50 routes that came down to three now – Esplanade-Gariahat, Esplanade-Shyambazar and Tollygunge-Ballygunge. Souvik Mukherjee, a senior member of CTUA, said,
“We’ve been pleading with the govt to restore trams in all routes but it turned a deaf ear to citizens’ demand.”
“Tram does not block anyone’s road, rather it cannot move due to illegal parking and loading or unloading of goods blocking the tracks.
We demand restoration of tramways as per the guidelines by the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court,” Debasish Bhattacharya, president of CTUA said.
Mahadeb Shi, secretary of CTUA, rued, “Many urban transport planners rank tramways as the best public transportation system in the world.”