The tramway of Kolkata is going to get a makeover as a team of officials from Belarus is going to visit the city to study the operational and technical modernization requirements of Calcutta Tramways, Sitaram Sharma, President, Bharat Chamber of Commerce informed.
Belarus, the Eastern Europe country has shown interest in modernizing tramways of the city apart from exporting buses and dumper trucks to India.
President Sharma also said that the Belarusian companies have expressed interest to manufacture and supply electric vehicles and trolleybuses. He was quoted saying, the Belarus-made trolleybuses are customized for Indian roads and have quick charging features.
A few days back, Andrei I Rzeheussky, Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus in India, said that the Belarusian firm BELAZ would like to sign an agreement with Coal India, to supply dumper trucks.
While attending an event, Ajay Mathur, Director General, Energy and Resources Institute’s (TERI’s) said that the tram infrastructure should be improved. The State Government should explore the dual-use of the Kolkata trams’ overhead power supply network so that they can be shared by the electric buses. He also said that several European cities run trams and buses on the same electric overhead wire network.
He expressed the opinion while answering the questions about the conditions of trams in Kolkata at a time when the Central Government is promoting e-vehicles.