MARGAO: Its 12.30 am and budget tourists looking to spend three weeks in Goa, which includes Christmas and New Year, are emerging from the airport. Two of them from London walk towards the outsourced baggage handling agency that also provides them a bus ride to their hotel. At the exit of the airport a bunch of taxi drivers manhandle them and push them towards the parked taxis. They scare them saying the bus is not safe and that it will take three hours to reach their destination.
Benjamin Thomas, who had a quick chat with Herald at the airport, says that the six taximen surrounded him and said that to Calangute 35 pounds is the best price (Rs 3000).
“I didn’t want my Goa holiday to be a disaster and took the deal though I knew I was being completely cheated,” Thomas says before he was forced into the taxi, almost kidnapped, and driven away.
Similarly Ameet Naik returning from a short holiday in the North East paid Rs 1200 from the airport to Margao on December 25. With less taxis in sight he was told by the black and yellow taxis that was the best price he could get since the taxis have decided notto queue up at the pre-paid counter and make a direct deal with tourists outside the airport. The helpless Goan was also conned into the deal.
The South Goa Taxi Association members say that hotels are overcharging and so also flights then why shouldn’t they also make a buck from all the money that tourists spend. Despite tourists stating that they can see what’s on offer in a hotel or flight deal, the taxi operators refuse to budge.
“I recently walked a mile from Arpora and took a taxi to Benaulim. I walked away because the taxi guys were harassing me. The taxi owner who told me his name was Gaurish and refused to use any meter or pricing chart. To my shock, the taxi guy abruptly terminated my journey at KTC Bus Stand Margao, well short of Benaulim and said that beyond that is not his turf, and I will have to
change taxis which was another Rs 750 for 9 kms,” says Dheeraj Jaidev, a software engineer who was in Goa on New Year’s eve.
He says his friends at Benaulim were threatened to return their rented scooters or the bikes would be thrashed. The car and bike rentals also hiked their rates with bikes being rent out for Rs 1200 a day on New Year’s eve compared to Rs 250 per day.
