CM ignores pleas for a compromise; appeals to those opposing to join app-based service on trial basis for three months
the goan I network
PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday ignored Opposition pleas for a compromise over the ongoing tussle between local taxi operators and the GTDC facilitated Goa Miles app-based service, fully backing the latter and appealing to those opposing it to join the app on a trial basis for three months. Making his point in response to the half-an-hour discussion on the issue raised by Benaulim MLA, Churchill Alemao, Sawant said only eight operators were controlling 2,559 rent-a-cab vehicles in Goa. Further, 18,000 two-wheelers were being operated under the rent-a-bike scheme which were collectively responsible for 300 fatal accidents, half of which involved tourists.
Porvorim MLA, Rohan Khaunte while admitting that imbibing technology was a must, it is imperative that local taxi drivers and operators who have been holding up the tourist transportation system for decades are not left out in the cold.
“Yet, tourists prefer this self driven mode of transport as taxis are not affordable to them,” Sawant said, adding that Goa Miles is just a ‘contractor’ company and the app technology is with the Goa Tourism Development Corporation.
He said, the app-based system is generating revenue to the State as Goa Miles has paid Rs 70 lakhs as GST thus far.
It is expected to earn the State an annual revenue of Rs 80 lakhs per year and additionally, five per-cent of the total revenues to the GTDC.
“App-based service is 100 percent safe, secure and reliable with use of good technology,” Sawant said, adding that taxi operators who log on to it will be assured of a minimum of Rs 40,000 in earnings per month.
“Try it for three months and then come to us. We are ready to review. We are also ready to support
any app of taxi owners if they come up with it”, Sawant said, adding that Goa Miles has been facilitated in the interest of tourism.
Sawant also alleged that a few people who control the taxi unions are making money but the small taxi owners are left high and dry.
The Chief Minister also said that changes with have to be brought in by issuing new notifications in the coming times and past notifications governing All India Taxi service, Black-and-Yellow taxis and the likes will have to be superceded to regulate the tourism transport sector.
The chief minister also said that those taxi drivers who join the app-based service will be exempted from the requirement to fit digital meters.
“We have brought app with a open tender. The Director is on co-ordination committee. App-based service is the need of the hour. Dadagiri will not work. Taxi owners will not go on strike. People should support the cause,” Sawant said, adding that if digital meters were installed by the taxi drivers earlier apps would have not come.
Earlier, initiating the discussion Churchill Alemao, had made an emotional appeal to the government to ensure that the taxi business which is one of the few sectors still controlled by Goans, should not be trampled upon and displaced from their livelihoods.
“They have invested in taxis and in their own way contributed to the growth of the Tourism industry. They must be supported and protected,” Alemao said, while tracing the contours of the growth of Goa’s tourism industry right from the 1990s.
The taxi driver-owner community have played a significant part in Goa’s tourism story, Alemao said, while highlighting that it was incumbent on the government to protect their interests and livelihoods.
Alemao also made a strong case for the government to impose a domicile rule for granting taxi driver batches. The self-employed taxi drivers will be displaced from their businesses by bigger players and investors who will operate taxi fleets under the app-based service by hiring non-Goan drivers, he added.
Opposition Leader, Digambar Kamat, backed Alemao’s sentiment that local taxi operators who have played a major role in the development of the tourism industry and censured the government for clandestinely supporting and facilitating the launch of Goa Miles App-based service in Goa.
“You have blundered by not taking the existing taxi operators into confidence right from the start. This app-based service has been brought in through the backdoor without any transparency,” Kamat said.
Citing the example of the black-and-yellow taxi association operating from the Konakan Railway station at Margao, Kamat said, they had begun over 20 years ago by setting up a counter inside the station by paying the Corporation an annual fee of Rs 2 lakhs.
“Today they are paying Rs 8-lakhs for the counter. If you allow an app-based service to eat into a lion share of their pie at the Station, obviously they will get agitated,” Kamat said and urged the government to come out with a solution by taking the taxi drivers into confidence.
Kamat also found fault with the general argument that app-based services are more efficient as demonstrated by their operations in other places all over the world.
“Don’t compare Goa to metros and big cities. Goa is not a metro. Semi-rural and rural areas in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala don’t have any app-based services although their metros like Mumbai, Bangalore and other larger cities have them,” Kamat pointed out.
He urged the government to give them support to develop an app of their own and back them to survive in the modern competitive world.
Several other legislators, including Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, Jayesh Salgaonkar, Vinoda Paliencar, Sudin Dhavlikar, Babush Monserrate, Glenn Souza Ticlo, Alina Saldanha among others joined the discussion but their inputs were largely on expected lines - those from the treasury benches backing GoaMiles while Opposition members opposing it.
