Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. He first said that Dabolim airport would close down if facilities do not improve.
This caused a flutter and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and the Centre had to step in to calm South Goa travellers, who cannot yet wrap their minds around a long taxi trip from Mopa airport.
Then Godinho said he would make bar owners responsible for drunk driving, a policy he probably pulled out of a B-grade Hollywood flick. He had a cosy picture in his mind of bar owners calling up taxis to ferry their drunk patrons home. And that this would solve drunk driving mishaps on the road.
Anyone who has made at least two visits to a bar would tell you this would not work because you cannot expect people who run a business selling liquor to tell clients to stop drinking and go home. It would be like asking mine owners to write their own environment clearance certificates.
When all that did not work, Godinho decided to take on the taxi lobby with the threat of launching an app. That is like going to war with a toothpick instead of a tank.
Godinho will not be the first to launch, attempt to launch or threaten to launch a taxi app. And there are no indications that he will be the first to succeed. The taxi unions have already told him to go fly a kite, and there is every possibility Godinho could end up as the sole user of the app.
History has shown that attempts to tame taxi drivers/owners usually end in failure. That is because the taxi lobby is huge and very effective at protecting its interests. Godinho seems hell-bent on learning this the hard way.
The reason for wanting to bring taxi owners to book is because they overcharge. We have heard complaints of tourists having to shell out loads of cash for short journeys, especially at night, when they are more vulnerable.
Taxi owners have been very effective in protecting this dark side of the trade, and even the late Manohar Parrikar failed to bring them to book.
There are about 20,000 registered taxis in Goa. This roughly translates into under one lakh votes concentrated in the coastal constituencies.
Only a politician with either guts or an absolute lack of political instinct would attempt to agitate them. It appears Godinho has decided to jump into the Pacific Ocean without a life jacket.
Let’s face it, the tourism industry is, at best, partly regulated. There are unlicensed hotels and illegal ones along the coast. This situation prompted the hotel lobby into filing an official complaint with the government.
However, governments in Goa have traditionally been reluctant or ineffective in regulating the tourism trade. Perhaps, out of fatigue or because illegal operators are better paymasters.
So why go after the taxi lobby? Maybe because it gets you more media shares? Or perhaps it is plain naïveté.
The easiest part of this whole policy is launching the app. Getting taxi drivers to use it could prove to be more difficult. And since the use of the app is optional, we have a rough idea of how this story will end for Mauvin Godinho and taxi drivers.
We secretly do hope, from the bottom of our Goan hearts, for a miracle, at least for Godinho’s sake.
