PANAJI
Dozens of taxi drivers from across Goa on Wednesday demonstrated outside Junta House in Panaji which houses the Transport Dept demanding the scrapping of the permission given to GoaMiles permissions to operate in the State.
They also sought to know the status of the next round of talks which Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho had assured on their contentious tussle with GoaMiles app-based taxi aggregator services.
Sawant who had engaged with associations of private taxi operators in the State in January had assured them a “balanced decision” in the interest of tourism and taxi operators. He had then promised the taxi associations further talks. Taxi drivers on Wednesday demanded to know the status of the matter from the Transport Director.
Incidentally, the director was not in his office and the agitating taxi operators proceeded to the Chief Minister’s official bungalow at Altinho but couldn’t get an audience with him either. His office informed them that the chief minister was in South Goa on official engagements.
Goa Miles is a private app-based taxi service that began operations in 2018 after a questionable exercise carried out by State-owned Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) which ensured the private company monopoly in the segment.
GTDC comes under the jurisdiction of the Tourism Department headed by Deputy Chief Minister Manohar (Babu) Azgaonkar.
Several months after Goa Miles began operations, the Godinho-led Transport Department as an afterthought issued notifications listing out elaborate regulatory guidelines for taxi service aggregators to commence operations.
With GTDC patronage, none of these transport department notified regulations for taxi service aggregators were applied to the already operating Goa Miles, giving it an advantage over potential competitors.
