Team Herald
PANJIM: The Goa Lokayukta has declined to hear a complaint alleging illegality into the government-backed mobile taxi app GoaMiles. RTI activist Sudip Tamhankar had lodged a complaint with the ombudsman citing various flaws into the implementation of the taxi-app, to which the institution recommended the complainant to approach the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
“The Lokayukta said it has no powers to hear the complaint and recommended to file the matter before the High Court,” Tamhankar informed Herald on Wednesday. The complainant, who is also a part of the All Goa Bus Owners’ Association, has decided to move the High Court against GoaMiles, this week.
In his 127-page complaint filed before the Lokayukta, Tamhankar stated that the government framed guidelines on March 13, 2018 and obtained approval for the app aggregators on June 7, 2019 much after the app was implemented in August 2018. “This is totally illegal,” he alleged citing various other irregularities.
The taxi operators backed by few other transport associations had launched a protest against continuing with GoaMiles demanding that government scrap the app. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had refused to bow down to the pressure even though the black-and-yellow and black-and-yellow taxis resorted to strike earlier this month after government declined to pay heed to their demand. Sawant gave them options to either design their own mobile application or run services the way they used to earlier.
