Kolkata, June 29 -- The iconic electricity-driven trams, which were largely phased out in 2024 due to mounting losses, may be headed for a major revival on the streets of Kolkata under the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime as its attempts to breathe new life into the environment-friendly transit system, transport minister Arjun Singh has said. The recently elected BJP government has now engaged the Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) to conduct a survey to help revive the service. "We want to revive the environment-friendly public transport system. RITES has been asked to conduct a survey," Singh said. RITES is a public sector undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways that offers engineering and consultancy services in transport infrastructure, including roads, airports and railways. Transport department officials said the state plans to renovate the old tracks first and then develop a model to operate modern carriages, similar to those seen in Australia and some European cities, to promote tourism in addition to serving as a daily mode of transport. "There used to be 40 routes during the Left Front government but only a limited number of trams currently operate on two routes: one from Gariahat to Esplanade via Park Circus in south Kolkata, and another from Shyambazar to Esplanade in the north. The feasibility study will determine if any of the old routes can be revived through modernisation," a transport department official said, requesting anonymity. The first experimental tram rumbled onto then imperial Bengal's streets on February 24, 1873, as a horse-drawn tram car on a 3.9-km distance between Sealdah and the Armenian Ghat in north Calcutta. It stuttered, and by November of that year, the service was withdrawn. It, however, was restarted in 1880 on metre gauge tracks and was run under the aegis of the British "Calcutta Tramways Company" (CTC), formally registered in London. Since then, the tram went from strength to strength for close to a century....