VASCO: Tension prevailed at Dabolim airport on Saturday afternoon after yellow-and-black taxi operators protested the issuing of challans to them by Dabolim police for parking their taxis in the no-parking zone at the internal road of the airport.
As per information, the taxi operators, who have been demanding parking facilities for several months, had started parking their vehicles on the internal road of the airport. As the same was obstructing the free flow of traffic, the Dabolim airport police started issuing challans to the taxi operators whose vehicles were parked in the no-parking zone.
The taxi operators refused to accept the challans, and they stopped their operations and marched to the police station to demand an explanation on why they had been targeted.
The police informed the taxi operators that action had been taken only as their vehicles were parked in the no-parking zone without any permission. They said that if the taxi operators had any grievance, they could contact senior police officials.
After a heated argument with the police, the taxi operators decided to take up the issue with senior police officials, following which the situation returned to normal.
“The police are harassing us all the time. Where will we go now? We have no place to park our vehicles at the airport. Even our request to provide a parking facility has remained unfulfilled. With no other option before us and after consulting the airport officials, we had started parking our vehicles parallel to the road so that we could get some relief. Traffic movement from the airport was not getting obstructed, but police have again started harassing us,” said Sudhakar Revankar, president of the United Taximen Union (UTU).
