PANJIM: That every Goan owns a vehicle is not a dream any longer. While, Goa’s birth rate may be something to be proud of, its vehicle growth rate is turning alarming.
As per figures sourced by Herald, Goa has 14.86 lakh vehicles registered in the State, and its population, as per the 2011 census was 14.59. It is therefore safe to state that Goa has as many vehicles as it has residents.
What’s even more interesting is that vehicles, including transport and non-transport, have grown multiple times in the last two decades with statistics indicating that while 29,869 vehicles were registered with the Transport Department in 1999-2000, two decades later there were 58,343 vehicles registered that year.
If that is a high amount, the previous year it was even higher at 75,085 vehicles registered. The highest number of vehicles registered in any year was, however, in 2017-18, when 86,119 vehicles were given licence plates. Till 2019-20, the total registered vehicles stood at 11.77 lakh.
At the moment, the State has a vehicular population of 14,86,426 – meaning every person owns a vehicle, in fact few own more than one. More than half the vehicles are two-wheelers, in addition to rental bikes, and nearly 4.5 per cent vehicles are privately-owned cars and jeeps.
Not just this, details with Transport Department also reveal that as many as 17,724 are taxis, certainly including tourist taxis; 3,954 are rental bikes and 3,765 rental cars.
As per the government statistics of vehicles registered as on date, 10,53,689 are two-wheelers, 3,42,273 are four-wheelers (private cars, taxis and rental cars, etc) whereas 85,778 are six wheelers, buses and good vehicles (including trucks) and 4,686 are vehicles such as auto-rickshaws, etc. This takes the grad total to 14,86,426 vehicles registered with various RTOs.
About rental cars/bikes and taxis, the Mapusa RTO leads with 8,090 rent-a-bikes, 2,612 rent-a-cars and 6,757 taxis registered over the years. Incidentally, Mapusa RTO registers vehicles of Bardez coastal belt, where the tourist influx is also large compared to the tourist belt across Pernem and South Goa.
