Hyderabad's Old City area may soon get tramways that run from the Moazzam Jahi market to Charminar and from the Qutub Shahi tombs to the Golconda Fort if things go according to plan.
While the word 'trams' are usually associated with rickety, old cabins that struggle to inch forward, the ones that may come up in Hyderabad, will be part of a 'new-age' tramway, similar to the one in the French city of Bordeaux.
During an Indo-French workshop on 'Charminar Pedestrianisation Project (CPP) and New Generation Tramway' in Hyderabad, GHMC mayor B Ram Mohan proposed to run a trams facility to improve the transport system in Old City.
The proposed tramway transportation project will be taken up by a team of experts from France. However, after considering the proposal, the civic officials took a decision on the next day, to scale down the tramway by a distance of 2.3 km. This came after heritage activists raised concerns about the historical monuments near Charminar.
"How will the tramway pass by the Charkamans what will happen to Gulzar Houz? Before they begin this kind of a project that impacts the most loved monument of Hyderabad they should have consultations with all stakeholders including the people living there," Anuradha Reddy of INTACH told The HIndu.
The tramway which reportedly plans to be set up with practically minimum land acquisition on the stretch between the two locations, is expected to cost about Rs 250 crore.
According to officials, the tramway is expected to earn a revenue of Rs 75 crore every year, while the operational cost will reportedly come to about Rs 45 crore a year. Trams are also easy to operate and maintain, the state government said.
As of now, the ticket is expected to cost Rs.10
"The GHMC also received suggestions from people and political parties to install the tramway from Golconda Fort to Qutub Shahi Tombs to help promote tourism in the city. The GHMC wants to take up the project after the CPP is completed in the next three months," GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy told TOI.
While the cost of building one kilometre of a tramway is estimated to be nearly Rs 100 crore, the benefit is still calculated to be cheaper than other transport systems such as the metro rail.
“We have to build the tramway not for the next election but for the next generation. It is easy to use where children and even differently-abled find it easy to access. It is not very expensive and it is not destructive to heritage,” Florence Forzy-Raffard, municipal councillor of Bordeaux told The Hindu.
Municipal Administration and Urban Development department officials added that the tramway could be the ultimate solution to overcome traffic and pollution problems that are plauging the city.
Last year, when the GHMC Mayor had visited Borde, in France, he said that such a project would improving the connectivity of public transport by 40% in the city.