The tourist taxi operators first assembled at the Colva police station to hand over a memorandum to Police station in-charge, PI Vikram Naik along with Cavelossim Sarpanch Dixon Vaz.
They later called on the South Goa Superintendent of police, Santosh Desai drawing his attention to the issue of unauthorised pick-ups by online taxi aggregators at hotels in South Goa.
Saying the practice of unauthorised pick-ups by online taxi aggregators is rapidly escalating and is causing significant distress to our local taxi operator community. “When these hotels were initially established, their management had explicitly promised local taxi operators like us exclusive rights to provide taxi services to their guests. Relying on this assurance, many of us took loans to purchase vehicles and have been serving the tourism industry for years.
"We have maintained a well-organised queue (O) system with dedicated counters at the hotels, which has been the backbone of our livelihoods and has ensured orderly service to tourists”, the memorandum stated.
The memorandum stated that many online taxi drivers operate without displaying a valid taxi badge or permit. This poses serious safety risks to vehicles, urinate in public areas, and passengers throw garbage .
Moreover, they frequently enter hotel premises, park indiscriminately, thereby harming the environment and disturbing the peace, the memorandum added.
