Connectivity issues will hit service at Dabolim, must be addressed on priority
The first thing on the minds of any tourists descending at Dabolim Airport would be heading to their respective destinations. Imagine them frantically struggling to book a taxi through the GoaMiles app, when a pre-paid taxi awaits just a few metres away and which comes at almost the same cost.
Goa is in the middle of yet another tourism season. A season which looks bleaker than the previous one with several charters being cancelled. Nothing has changed in Goa from the last season. The same garbage and stray cattle continue to greet tourists like before. If there was any change, it was GoaMiles, the State’s first home-grown app-based taxi
service.
Against the backdrop of an unregulated taxi service which never found favour with tourists, Goa Tourism Development Corporation’s recent offering held much promise and was expected to be a game-changer. If there was stiff opposition to Ola and Uber services for fear of ‘outside’ companies ruling Goan roads, GoaMiles looked like a perfect fit.
However, since the time Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar launched the app at the Secretariat complex, Porvorim in August till now, the app-based service has not made much headway. The bizarre incident where GoaMiles played hide-and-seek early morning with three Goans only exposes the chinks in the system.
From problems with the payment gateway, to issues of internet service providers and a helpless help-desk, the GoaMiles app provided the most horrifying moment to say the least. Not only did the three Goans fail to get a GoaMiles booking, but to their utter disbelief realized much later that payment has been effected for the fare during one of those futile attempts which didn’t get them a booking.
Issues concerning payment gateway and other software bugs should have been fixed by now since it’s a good three months since the app was launched. Goans may have endured the early morning frustration this time for the sheer thrill of trying out a made-in-Goa app. Tourists will be least interested in these experiments. For them, easy accessibility of a taxi service and reaching their destination at a decent price is all that will matter.
GoaMiles has not covered enough ground to usher in a change in taxi services. Leave aside breaking ice with the defiant tourist taxis, former GTDC Chairman Nilesh Cabral has failed in course correction. Besides rectifying issues, the app needs to be completely customer-friendly with round-the-clock support of a help desk to troubleshoot issues instantly. Tourist cannot be made to run from pillar to post on a simple booking issue. Moreover, government must ensure that there are more taxis added to the fleet since non-viability may force the existing ones to drop out.
Dayanand Sopte, the former Mandrem MLA, who has been gifted the corporation chair for his sacrificial gesture of quitting Congress faces an uphill task ahead. It remains to be seen how he powers GoaMiles ahead.
