This article comes in the light of taxi operators literally “browbeating and bullying” tourists in Goa during the Christmas-New Year season and the subsequent highlight of the same by Herald on January 3, 2017.
Meanwhile, the Goa Traffic cell Margao Traffic Cell took cognizance of our report only on January 20, 2017, days after the season ended and asked us verbally to give details of the tourists we mentioned that were harassed with their passport numbers.
Taking a leaf of this delay and how serious really is the Traffic Cell and Police Department in Goa to crackdown on the taxi problem is the BIG Q. When we decide to search across social media platforms to check what tourists are saying about Goa’s taxi menace, here is what we stumbled upon:
Yummraj from Bangalore points out that on his trip to Goa a few weeks back, how he was harassed to pay Rs 3,000 for his taxi ride from Dabolim to Arpora and the driver refused to give him a bill and even refused to stop for coffee on the way and told him that he may have coffee only at the coffee shop he would stops! Yummraj asserts that he now understands how tourists are “fleeced” by taxi operators.
While another budget traveller from Ranchi explains how he was made to paid exorbitantly from Santa Cruz to Margao.
Similarly, a supermarket owner in Orlim, afraid to have his name published because he has to face the brunt of the Ramada Hotel taxi association, explains how the taxi driver continuously brings in clients to this shop and the cabbies insists on putting the goods in a plastic bag when billed and accordingly threaten the supermarket owner for a cut on the bill in the name of bringing the customer to his shop and also based on the spending’s of the customer, the taxi operator decides to bill his client for the taxing charges.
Puneet Sharma from Delhi tweets that he hates every business meeting he has in Goa despite managing many massive events and expensive destination weddings in Goa. He tweets, “In Goa, my Ola and Uber and all other taxi apps go for a toss. My wallet drains out of cash on cabs and that’s a real downer.”
While tourists from Chicago and Boston travel on cruise ship and look at catching Goa’s sun and sands while they dock in Goa, they also vent out their anger on a Facebook group namely, Goa taxi experiences wherein they write how the taxi operators do not allow them to walk out of the port and are forced to hop onto taxis at Vasco that charge them even Rs 4000 a day just to take them to Old Goa, Panjim and Calangute or Dona Paula and back to Vasco.
Arul Georga said, “My brother lives and works in a starred hotel in Goa and came to meet me at another hotel where I was to attend a conference. They told my brother we don’t care if you have a car, but we will take your brother from the hotel we’re stationed at and bring him to your home at a fare of Rs 2,300 and from there, you can take him sight-seeing,” tweeted an angry Arul who’s baffled by the taxi operators’ whims and fancies.
Recent incidents of a Fifa Official who came to Goa to overlook the U-17 World Cup arrangements being hassled was highlighted and showed Goa in complete bad taste.
“Ridefrog, a Israeli social media app and VK, the Russina social media app has numerous advisory’s for their tourists to stay away from Goan cabbies because they extort and are violent and tourists are advised to rent a bike or in worst case scenario use the bus,” asserts Germano D’Souza who works for a chartered flight operating company at Dabolim.
While @WatchDrego on Instagram put pictures of the cost of travelling on a Kadamba shuttle and how he commuted Margao-Panjim for Rs 40 while his return journey on a taxi with a friend cost him Rs 1400 and the taxi driver questioned him how much he pays his hotel and how much was his international flight fare from London and hence why is he cribbing about spending so much on a cab in Goa?
