THE MYSTERY SURROUNDED TO THE ENTRY OF OLA AND UBER IN THE STATE, TILL DATE, HAS BEEN FINALLY COME TO AN END, WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF GOA’S TRANSPORT MINISTER THAT OLA AND UBER WILL BE NOT ALLOWED IN THE STATE. THE STATE THAT ATTRACTS MORE THAN 5 MILLION TOURISTS PER YEAR DOES NOT HAVE THE GOOD PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM AND THE LOCAL TAXI OPERATORS RULES THIS SECTOR….
In the month of April 2017, a Goan, Mr. Mahesh Sardesai, who is staying in Canada, launched a Facebook Campaign against the local taxi operators for their rude behavior and started an online petition on change.Org.
The petition claimed that the Local Tourist Taxi operators fleece the tourists coming to the state which gives the bad name to Goa’s Tourism Industry. Now the Goans does not require the services of local taxi operators and their intimidating nature which scares the tourists rather than making them feel at home, the petition claimed.
The petition further made the claims that the entry of Ola and Uber will lead to boost the tourism in the state due to the following aspects.
• It will boost the Tourism in the state.
• It will be the cheaper commuting with no return fare charges applicable.
• Gainful employment for the sincere people instead of Goonda taxi operators.
• Less number of cars and easier to park.
• shared OLA and UBER services will reduce the traffic conditions in the state.
• People don’t have to keep driver waiting and unnecessarily pay the waiting charges.
• The automatic tracking system will provide the better security.
• Convenient payment mode (cashless) with easy exact fare and no surprises.
• Quality customer service and instant feedback online.
But the state taxi union opposed the entry of Ola and Uber into the state claiming that their entry will result in the loss of business to them. According to the Report, Calangute MLA Micheal Lobo came to the rescue of the Taxi operators union in the state by supporting their demands. Calangute MLA Micheal Lobo assured his full support to the Calangute Taxi Owner’s Association’ in their fight against the entry of OLA and UBER Cabs services in Goa. He told the taxi owners and operators that he will not allow the OLA and UBER in the state and advised them to build their own APP on the platform of OLA and UBER.
But several months passed and nothing actually happened and no APP have come into an existence till date. Meanwhile, GTDC decided to come to the rescue of local taxi operators by launching its own APP in the line with Ola and Uber and accordingly Curchorem MLA Mr. Nilesh Cabral made an announcement of the same.
By the time, the online Petition initiated by the Goan NRI settled in Canada had started gaining a huge momentum with more than 5000 people having been signed the petition. The main agenda of the petition was, to bring an efficient Cab service like OLA and UBER into the state and put the full stop to the goonda Giri of Local taxi operators.
Now another development has come into this direction and the Goa’s Transport Minister decided to intervene into the matter. According to the reports, Transport Minister Mr. Sudin Dhavalikar made an announcement that Goa government is not planning to allow the Global cab aggregator like Uber and Ola to operate in the state of Goa. Mr. Dhavalikar expressed this in a written reply in the assembly to a question asked by Nationalist Congress Party member Churchill Alemao.
There are many issues which resulted in creating the crack in the cabinet due to the differences of an opinion in MLAs, mainly this always sparked between the BJP and MGP leaders. It may be recalled that Nilesh Cabral always remained against the behavior of local taxi operators, and accused a section of drivers in the state of running Goa’s reputation as they overcharge customers and conduct themselves in an unruly manner. He had been demanding the introduction of cab aggregators like Ola and Uber in Goa.
The reports claim that more than 500 million rides have been taken by people in India on Uber cabs in the four years since the ride-hailing company’s debut in the country. On Thursday, Uber said it is “winning in India,” its largest overseas market. Uber, which operates in over 650 cities across the world, is unsurprisingly the choice of cab platform among international riders. Riders from 94 countries have used Uber in India, the company said.
What is your opinion? Do you think that Ola and Uber should come to Goa? Please do share your views on this serious issue which is haunting Goa and Goans for quite some time.
SOURCE: NDTV
