Permit fees of buses, taxis slashed

Permit fees of buses, taxis slashed
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, DEC 28
Bowing to the demands of the tourist taxi owners as well as bus owners associations, the State government today decided to partially roll back the hike in the permit fee for the commercial vehicles.
The government had hiked the permit fee for tourist taxis from Rs 150 to Rs 5000 and from Rs 150 to Rs 1500 for buses following which the taxi and bus owners had planned a mass agitation on December 27.
However, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat had intervened in the matter and assured them that their demands would be met and convinced them against going on strike.
Keeping up his promise the chief minister today called a meeting with the taxi, bus and rickshaw owners association, which was also attended by Transport Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, Calangute legislator Agnelo Fernandes and Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava.
Confirming the development Kamat told Herald the demands of the people were genuine.
“We felt the demands were genuine and reduced the fee hike to satisfy the tourist taxi and bus operators,” Kamat said.
General Secretary of North Goa Tourist Taxi Owners Association Vinayak Nanoskar told Herald the chief minister and the transport minister were kind enough to accede to their demands.
“The taxi permit fee has been brought down to Rs 900 from present Rs 5000 while for the bus owners it has been reduced to Rs 800,” he said adding “reduction of permit fee has also been made for the autoricksaw and yellow cabs permit fees.”
Nanoskar also said that their other demand was that the new fare rates notified in the recent gazette were wrong and need to be scrapped.
“The transport minister has assured to notify new rates within eight days,” he said.