PANJIM: Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho on Thursday said that the government has always been accommodating with the taxi operators and alleged that a few wanted a monopoly over the service.
“Government did maximum accommodation for taxi operators. We gave them whatever they asked including free of cost digital meters. They are ambassadors of tourism and they should know their responsibility,” he said.
Stating that fitment of digital meters is as per the High Court directives, Godinho said that some rotten apples are trying to find excuses and are the same operators who were making one trip per day by overcharging passengers and it will stop now.
“Entire Goa’s tourism cannot be held to ransom by these few people who do not want to understand the reality,” he said, adding that the taxi operators were unaware that the monopoly act was abolished nearly three decades ago and brought forth a free open market.
The Transport Minister said that as per one of the back-end services by NIC, people should be able to book taxis on mobile apps. He said that in order to protect local taxi operators, the government has decided not to allow Ola and Uber cab services in the State and warned that the government will not allow a few operators to have monopoly over the service.
Godinho refused to react to the statement made by Ports Minister Michael Lobo that the taxi operators will not allow cab aggregators to pick passengers from taxi stands, beaches and hotels. “That you please ask him (Lobo). I don’t know whether such a thing is possible. Ultimately policy decision is that everybody with the meter will be allowed to operate in the same manner in entire Goa. I don’t think you can do this kind of high-handing anywhere. It is a wrong precedent been sent,” he said.
