MARGAO
Day two of the ongoing strike by the Tourist taxi owners and operators went without any untoward incident along Salcete coastal belt, but tourists complained of being stranded for hours for want of transport facilities.
While the men-in-uniform took pride in saying that not a single untoward incident was reported anywhere in South Goa for the second successive day, tourists had a bitter experience during their stay in the state.
A group of tourists from Lucknow, who had come down to Goa on Friday and were putting up at Colva, lamented over the Goa government’s failure to make adequate arrangements for the transportation of tourists during the strike period. “People coming to Goa for sight seeing may even do a re-think of visiting the state in future. The transport arrangements were grossly inadequate. We had to wait for over an hour for a bus to reach our destination,” another tourist from Rampur told the media at Colva.
The tourists said that the strike by the tourist taxi operators and the government’s failure to put in place alternate transport arrangements in time of emergency may send a wrong message to the tourists.
They were also critical of the rickshaw operators, accusing some of them for overcharging and dropping them nearly one kilometer away from the Colva beach. “We were charged Rs 500 by an auto rickshaw and the attitude of the driver was not too courteous. We had no option than to fend for ourselves,” a domestic tourist complained.
Police personnel were deployed at the junctions at sensitive points along Salcete coastal belt.
