PANAJI
Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho on Monday indicated that the resolution of the contentious battle, at times violent, between the government-backed private taxi aggregator GoaMiles and the State's taxi operators is caught up in inter-departmental jurisdictional conflicts.
Godinho, however, said, that his transport department is in talks with stakeholders on one to one basis.
“The file is moving to transfer counters from tourism to the transport department. Half the thing is being controlled by tourism, half by transport," Godinho said, adding that logically it is a problem under transport.
"How can I be held responsible when it has not been transferred to the transport department,” he asked.
GoaMiles is a private app-based taxi service which 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) Ajgaonkar.
Several months after GoaMiles began operations, meanwhile, 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 GoaMiles, giving it an advantage over potential competitors.
