Don’t shut any tram line till panel gives report: HC
Times of India | 19 February 2025
12 Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has instructed that no tram line in Kolkata should be closed until a designated committee inspects all the lines and submits a report. The division bench of Chief Justice S Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) also ordered Kolkata Police to identify those who poured bitumen on the tram tracks on Judges Court Road in Alipore. However, they amended an earlier order on removing the bitumen as trams have not been plying on the route for several years.
The court asked the panel it formed to look into the future of trams to consider, at its meeting on Wednesday, a public-private partnership to operate at least one route. The Esplanade-Kidderpore service the govt proposed to run as a heritage route may figure in the talks.
Petitioners and tram lovers want the govt to look at trams as an eco-friendly mode of transport and not relegate it to heritage status. At present, only two lines — Gariahat-Esplanade on route 25 and Shyambazar-Esplanade on route 5 — are in operation. The transport minister, Kolkata Police, and the mayor have said they do not want trams in the city other than the Esplanade-Kidderpore route.
Reacting to the police report submitted on the bituminisation of tracks on Judges Court Road and Kidderpore Road, that simply stated that no agency gave NOC on the issue, Pradeep Kakkar of NGO PUBLIC said it was like police investigating a murder and telling the court that no one ordered the killing.
PUBLIC and advocate Sulaghna Mukherjee individually filed PILs on the govt's attempts to remove trams from city roads, pointing out that the eco-friendly transport was being phased out even as cities across the world were reintroducing trams. The NGO also objected to the transport department's attempts to set up a ‘strategic' committee to seek guidance from experts and conduct a survey of tram networks, including the depots.
"I have not gone through the order. But those who bituminise tram tracks have violated the order and must be brought to book," said Calcutta Tram Users Association president Debasish Bhattacharya.
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