As the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa and the Goa Chamber of Commerce have decided to file a petition in the High Court of Bombay, for directions to the government to ensure compliance of its own decision to make digital meters in taxis compulsory, they deserve the full-fledged and full-throated support of all right thinking people of Goa who still dream of saving tourism, and more importantly, the image of Goa as a warm friendly state. The taxi owners of Goa have damaged that reputation almost beyond control, by the refusal to fall in line with best practices followed all over the country and the world.

Taxi owners are doing everything possible they can to destroy the industry from which they are seeking their livelihoods.

 Let us address the immediate issue of taxis running without any rates or controls or meters. On June 2015 the transport department issued a notification that it would be mandatory for 15,000-odd tourist taxis in Goa to install GPS-enabled digital meters.

Post this, the Goa Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules, 2015, notified in December 2015, requires motor cabs to be fitted with fare meters and a GPS tracking device. The rules were notified on December 4, 2015.

The taxi owners immediately resorted to blackmail and started agitating forcing a weak government to give in. On November 11, 2016, the government issued a notification keeping in abeyance the implementation of Amended Rule.  This is a blatant illegal act as there is no provision to hold in abeyance a notification, much like the Regional Plan which has been illegally kept in abeyance for four years.

The taxi owners association has been providing perverse logic for not implementing what the law is, with a helpless vote bank hungry government looking the other way. For the record they have said they will accept digital meters provided, self-drive rental vehicles are controlled. We strongly argue that it is the market and the need of the consumer that dictates these decisions, and it obviously applies even to the rent a car business, which has to be run according to rules. But why should the “regularisation” of the rent-a- car business be a condition for tourist taxis installing digital meters.

Taxis all over the world, with the exception of some lawless banana republics, run on meters. Is Goa a banana republic? In the world of tourists taxi operators, it obviously is when you hear statements like this, reported in the Goan media space. The general secretary of the Tourist Taxi Owners' Association, Vinayak Nanoskar, was quoted as saying "In no other state do tourists go and hire cars to drive themselves around. Then why do they do so only in Goa? With all due respect to him, his association and his profession and his genuine need to earn a livelihood, we ask which world does he live in?  In most major towns of India, you get self-driven cars on rent these days. And if Mr Nanoskar would care to study his subject, he will know that in most Indian cities (we are not even getting out of India) there is a well oiled system of radio taxis and other taxis plus an effective form of public transport. Therefore people have the option of either self- drive or radio cabs and it goes without saying that these have to be run legally too. Thanks to the taxi drivers, radio taxis have not arrived in Goa and even buses aren’t allowed to go to the airport.

 What Goa needs is more choices, because we do not have any. The taxi drivers are doing everything they can to see that tourists do not have choices and are forced, harassed, tortured and terrified.

Nanoskar made another statement: Rent-a-car businesses have to be cracked down. We will not allow anyone to earn a living if our livelihood is not being protected by the state administration."

Herald responds:  Why should one business be cracked down at the cost of the tourist taxi business which runs in dictatorial and unregulated manner. Both should run and both should be regulated.

Statements like ‘We will not allow anyone to earn a living” are a threat and threats have no place in this room.

The government cannot be held to ransom to protect livelihoods of some people at the cost of not giving livelihoods to others. Don’t bus owners, private rental car owners need livelihoods? If there are choices, taxis will have meters so that they cannot overcharge, radio cabs as well as rental cars will be allowed in Goa and all of these can be run by locals with earning opportunities for all.

The new government should follow only this path and none other. There should be absolutely no compromise on this. Taxis need to have meters and GPS systems and be digitally tracked. And rental cars and radio cabs should be allowed in with Goans getting first preference to run these businesses.