PANAJI
The State government has told the Bombay High Court at Goa that it would float tenders seeking suppliers for digital taxi meters fitted with GPS and printers within a period of three weeks.
The submission was made when the petition filed by the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa seeking that the court directs the government to ensure that taxis in Goa have meters installed and charge by the meter, was taken up in the court.
"The Goa Electronics Limited has sent a draft for the purpose of floating Expression of Interest and the Government is in process of finalising the same. The tender would be issued around three weeks from today," the High Court recorded the state government
as saying.
Earlier, the government had told the court that implementation of the order making taxi meters compulsory would be implemented "after (the) Department of Transport finalizes the standards of the type of Digital Meters with GPS and printers to be fixed in the taxis with the approval of State Transport Authority and Government of Goa in consultation with Department of Weights and Measures (legal metrology) and after all technical modalities in this regard are finalised."
Earlier the Bombay High Court at Goa had asked the State Government to issue an order mandating compulsory digital taxi metres by Wednesday as the issue has been "pending for some time and a policy decision is already taken."
"What we are shown are the internal notings from the file. Since the issue is pending for some time and policy decision is already taken, we expect that the formal order can now be passed for which longer time is not required. All it requires is an order since now no impediments remain. The order can indicate that the time schedule will be fixed subsequently," the High Court noted in its order.
Installation of taxi meters has been a contentious issue with taxi operators showing no concrete signs that they will accede to the law and install the meters and have instead offered their own sets of vague demands to the government as a ‘condition' before they can install meters.
