When Mopa commenced operations, the first flight arrived dot on time. After the baggage was collected, the chaos began. The much touted App services, and the colourful blue taxis, did not cope. Much hype, nil performance! Apps did not work, and disarray set in. WIFI and connectivity exactly were next to nil. Not promising for a destination that aspires to be a global product. The Tourism or Transport departments share blame for the fiasco. Big-ticket resignations were in order. One or both of ministers should have been on-the-spot to sweat it out and assure people. The government and their cohorts in the industry will dismiss the blemish as a case of ‘first-day blues’. Hardly justifiable because Mopa has been in the pipe line for years and there were months upon months to organize themselves. Planning missed the bus. The plain fact is this: Mopa was never reckoned as an airport. It was a real estate venture. Little wonder, logistics and infrastructure were not factored into planning. The clutter is there to spot and, sadly a smoothly operational Dabolim is all-but-dead despite denials.
Day I: Mopa arrivals needed hours before they were transported to their destinations. One report narrates shelling out Rs 4,148 to cover a distance of 65.86 kilometers, more than an air-fare to Mumbai or Bangalore! As Transport and Tourism shuffle blame, the fact of the matter remains unchanged. A five-minute wait to take your car to pick up an arrival costs a whopping Rs 1,000. It seems like the ultimate loot except that this had the blessings of the industry and government. Forget for now and ever that the ‘thugs’ were actually the taxi operators. The truth is closer to home!
Who were the counter managers who applied the dictum ‘offence is the best form of defence’, and act brusquely with customers? Reports from on-the-ground described the shock and horror of a customer being asked to ‘get out’ of the airport by an airport staff on the misplaced assumption that he was a taxi driver.
Rather than organizing music, dance, and gimmicks to greet the first arrivals, relevant authorities should have been overseeing operations. Frivolity is not something one expects from the serious business of doing tourism and receiving guests. Comparisons with the Delhi airport are frivolous. Mopa is remote from those standards.
The tourism system itself needs a revamp and rock-solid professionalism. Revenge tactics against taxi drivers is backfiring on government and industry. How many tourism officials can put up their hand to say they understand the taxi operators and the way in which they manage their taxi stands? First-hand surveys vouch for their high standards of management. They are not management gurus but their standards of ethics, smooth coordination, streamlined taxi stands, and discipline are worthy of emulating by their accusers. A taxi operator found intoxicated in his stand is suspended for a stipulated number of days. Not so with industry conglomerates who can wine and dine during work hours. Remember Lalu Prasad Yadav who made the upper castes and upper classes eat humble pie when he lectured at IIM, Ahmedabad in response to an invitation after he radically transformed the Railway Ministry into a profit-making, yet-socially-useful endeavour to the masses who travel by trains. Goa can learn some hardboiled lessons.
It quite shocks one when a media edit page reported in derogatory terms what was behind the ruckus when the cruise ships docked and industry sent buses on a looting yatra to throw out taxis from the line of business. That editor has probably never stepped out of his comfy AC office to do an on-the-spot survey of the truth. Has anyone cared to investigate the exorbitant costs buses charge each passenger? Do they not illegally collect cash in dollars in violation of currency regulations? Is this booty shared between tour operators and Reps? This is openly illegal trade countenanced by industry and government.
Changing the colour of taxi is not an innovation. It is ‘chameleonish’ at best. The fact is tourist taxi operators provide efficient and clean services. The myth is Kadamaba buses and blue taxis will ease things. The KTC buses designated to the service will soon gather dust and rust knowing how KTC is managed. The further allegory is that government taxi systems will work smoothly.
It beats common sense and standards of justice that taxi operators and yellow-black taxis are being denied a counter in Mopa. This is their fundamental right to local livelihoods and on equitable terms. A level playing field must be the minimum pre-condition. All ‘Drive your Cab’ licenses should be de-licensed. These are owned by the rich who make profits in addition to their salaries and other businesses. Moreover, renters cause traffic havoc on our roads; they simply have no clue of Goan road culture. They navigate to places around Goa with Google-Maps. The deprived victim is the taxi operator. In a welfare society, the least in society must be placed first in a government’s list of priorities. Taxis should be an autonomous and integrated part of tourism services.
Several alternative destinations in South and South East Asia are rapidly outdoing Goa’s tourism space with quality options. The loyal-to-Goa tourist has changed locale as the Goan tourism ecosystem fails. Goa rapidly risks trailing a distant last.
Goan tourism industry aspires to high-end tourism but the self-acclaimed cream arrives seeking cheap booze, exotic women, gambling, and money laundering. When there is no social vision in tourism, Goa’s social-cultural system will face obliteration. The essence of Goa will dissipate.
Goa should ready itself for real-time changes in which the local community is author and subject of tourism. What matters is substance not form, nor profits.
