The Airport Authority of India (AAI) officials fought a lengthy battle to ensure that airline passengers arriving to Goa airport are provided an alternate mode of public transport and with the launch of the car rental counter at Dabolim airport, despite stiff resistance from the yellow black taxi union, they seem to have achieved their objective.
Obviously, the new facility would provide immense relief to the airline passengers arriving at the airport, as they would now have the choice of transport. However another problem seems to have gained roots in form of parking space and problems thereof.
With the plying of additional taxis, the traffic management at the international airport would come under a greater challenge, going by the struggle and chaotic situations witnessed here.
Ironically, if something is not done soon, this problem too may inflate beyond the taming capacity of the airport authorities.
Policemen managing traffic at the airport were of the opinion that the airport authority should have waited for some more time till the parking issues were resolved, before launching the new car rental counter at the airport.
“AAI have waited for several years to resolve the parking issue. Why has it suddenly made haste in launching the car rental counter is a big question, as the existing taxi operators and other airport users have been struggling to find parking space, but the issue aside AAI opened a new car rental counter, making the situation messy,” a senior police officer from Dabolim airport police station said under condition of anonymity.
Stakeholders from tourism industry, however, think differently, though they also want AAI and the State government to resolve parking issue at the airport.
“A customer needs to have a variety of choices of transport and this model is being followed all across the world. Now at Goa airport passengers have yellow-black taxis and other car rental facility. However, when it comes to parking I feel that nobody is bothered to resolve the issue as we have been discussing about parking for the past six years but nothing concrete has been done,” President of Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) Savio Messias said.
He also suggested that no cars, including taxis should be allowed to park in front of airport terminal building. “For the last many years TTAG has been requesting the government to work out a parking system like all other airports in the country. Here in Goa, the airport is flooded with taxis, delaying the exit of vehicles. AAI should have given equal priority to parking. Unfortunately everyone knows what happened to the land that was identified for parking,” he added
Dabolim airport sure is in a mess as the 36,800 square metres of land in survey number 8/1 of Dabolim village, which was acquired by the State government and was allotted to AAI for parking and allied facilities (as part of the expansion plans of Dabolim airport) and was denotified mysteriously by the State government, with the claim that there was an “alternative” land to the tune of approximately 70,000 square metres available for parking.
Since the past six years, AAI has been waiting for the ‘alternative’ land, which was promised to them by the State government. Now there is an urgency to resolve parking issue as there has been substantial growth in passenger traffic at the airport that currently does not have proper parking space and the problem continues to haunt all visiting the airport.
To provide a helping hand in resolving the parking issue, recently the Panchayat Minister and Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho assured he would provide the comunidade land adjacent to Rajhans theatre and land besides the road leading to Assoi-Dongri to create a modern airport parking facility.
On same day he had announced that by July this year the multilevel car parking (MLCP) facility, which has provision to park 540 cars would be operational. Hopefully these initiatives would help solve the parking problems.
Herald investigation revealed that on any given day, over 3000 cars, including private cars and taxis (airport taxis and taxis from other parts of Goa) visit the airport every day. Besides, there are people working at the airport and collectively the airport currently needs parking for about 1000 cars/taxis/two wheelers and coaches, but the planned parking capacity is only 540 cars (at MLCP).
With the launching of new car rental counter and proposed new taxi services planned by GTDC, the parking need of the airport would increase substantially and it is therefore important for the State government and AAI to work in tandem to get the parking issue, which is one of the major issues at the airport, resolved.
