Over the past few weeks, the monsoon finally arrived in Goa, bringing relief to a parched landscape, and mercifully breaking through the wall of all-enveloping humidity. But the rains have done nothing to cool tempers in the state. A few days ago, Goa’s health minister Vishwajit Rane pompously rained fire and brimstone at the Chief Medical Officer of Goa Medical College over allegedly denying care to an elderly patient – without bothering to understand the facts first. The move bombed so spectacularly that it has managed to unite medical professionals across the country.
But that melodrama was merely an appetiser compared to the full-course storm that has been brewing since late May. The Goa transport department dropped the live grenade of the draft Goa Transport Aggregator Guidelines 2025 in the Official Gazette. The guidelines are a regulatory framework for app-based taxis, and include licensing fee, tariffs, and incentives. The government has also called upon any objections to be sent to the transport department within 30 days.
If you’ve ever visited Goa or followed the state’s soap-operatic socio-political events from the outside, you can probably predict what happened next. For years, tourists have lodged increasingly shrill complaints about the “taxi mafia” charging “exorbitant” rates for short distances. They’ve also been caught in the crosshairs of taxi operators whose turf wars are part of the many unspoken rules governing the state.
Just a couple of months ago, a tourist at Mopa Airport complained, in a widely disseminated video, about being blocked by local taxi drivers from taking a rental car. Around the same time, a family from the United Kingdom spoke about physical intimidation and having to ransom their way out of a Varca resort, when their pre-booked cabs were apprehended by taxi drivers stationed near the resort. The situation isn’t much better for Goan residents, who – in the absence of reasonable and reliable modes of commute – are equally hostage in this game of automotive roulette.
All of these simmering grievances reached a rolling boil over the last year, when reports of sliding tourist numbers began to trickle in. Multiple factors have conspired to dent Goa’s tourist appeal, but the taxi situation provides the most visible and convenient target for blame. The government has desperately scrambled to manage the fallout by controlling the narrative. The notification of draft guidelines is undoubtedly a step in that direction, after an impressive string of false starts in 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2022.
Naturally, taxi operators are up in arms. Dramatic scenes have unfolded from the north to the south ends of the state. Convoys of operators descended upon the Department of Transport office to submit their objections. They also met with MLAs. At one such meeting, Yogesh Govekar – a prominent leader of the Taxi Owners’ Association, who goes by the menacing nickname “Mogambo” – theatrically tore the guidelines. Another operator has threatened suicide.
But strip away the theatrical protests, and the taxi operators’ desperation begins to make sense. Govekar’s own story is an illustration of Goa’s post-liberation transformation. Born in 1981 in Vagator, Govekar told me that his family could barely afford the uniform of the school he attended. The taxi business was his family’s pathway out of poverty. Starting with a second-hand rental car business after graduation, Govekar built what he describes as a stable middle-class life.
From fields to taxis
It’s a familiar trajectory repeated across thousands of families. Goa’s taxi operators trace their legitimacy to an unwritten social contract dating back to the early days of tourism. As Gerard DeSouza explains in his detailed analysis, many of today’s drivers descend from the landless peasant classes who worked the fields that were eventually sold to build hotels. When large resorts came up in places like Salcete in the 1980s, those who surrendered their land rights under the Agricultural Tenancy Act were promised they would benefit from tourism – either through jobs or, crucially, through self-employment in transport.
DeSouza writes: “At the core of the taxi operators’ ‘rent-seeking’ behaviours is a need to ensure that they get a share of Goa’s tourism industry. When a huge hotel or other tourism-related establishment is set up in a village, the immediate profits go only to the landowner who sold the land for the hotel, while the rest of the village loses more than just a little – be it sewage in the fields, water scarcity, or simply a loss of what was once a freely accessible open space (even though it was privately owned) for as long as you didn’t steal the produce. Even though you didn’t own all the land in the village, the entire village was in effect ‘yours’ in the sense that you would demand to have a say in what happens or doesn’t happen within the territory.”
This is the backdrop to the concerns expressed by people like Govekar. In a state where hotel ownership, restaurant businesses, and even beach shack operations have increasingly moved to outside investors, the taxi sector represents one of the few industries still predominantly controlled by residents. The economics they’re defending also has its own logic, however warped it may appear to outsiders. First of all, the per-kilometre fare fixed by the government in Goa is much higher than in other cities. Goa’s low population density means taxi drivers often have to deal with empty return journeys. So, the high rates that tourists complain about are an attempt to compensate for the unique demand patterns of a small state.
Govekar points out that smaller operators like him cannot compete with the massive fleets operated by corporations such as Uber and Ola, as well as the predatory pricing they introduce in any market. “This will finish taxis and pilot businesses,” Govekar told me. “The volume of business is already very low. Many politicians are behaving like sales representatives for app taxis. Tell me: Didn’t Campa disappear from the market when Coke was launched?”
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Waning sympathy
Despite valid concerns, sympathy for the taxi operators’ plight evaporates quickly when your cab cancels on you for the fourth time in the middle of a rainy night. The legitimate anxieties of taxi operators are overshadowed by the methods of protecting their turf, which in turn have created a transport system that serves almost no one well.
Jack Sukhija, president of the Travel & Tourism Association of Goa, speaks of the mental energy that tourists expend in planning a trip to Goa, especially when they are used to booking taxis in a few taps. “Tourist taxis are expensive everywhere, but you don’t want to spend time worrying about whether the guy will show up or not,” he told me.
According to Sukhija, the taxi drivers are mistaken and likely haven’t understood the guidelines. For starters, only Goa-registered vehicles can be onboarded to the apps, and there are insurance incentives for drivers. “Apps will allow taxi operators, who often complain about empty returns, to sweat their asset more,” he said. “It’ll solve some of our parking woes. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Tourist complaints, however valid, pale in comparison to the daily transportation struggles faced by Goan residents. Mousinho Reis – who, along with others, launched one of the most prominent petitions for app-based taxis a few years ago – speaks with the frustration of someone who has watched his home state become increasingly unliveable for locals. The petition gathered over 12,000 signatures.
Reis has been in this fight for nearly a decade. A former tourism industry professional, he understands all sides of Goa’s transport equation. Reis recalls a time in the ’80s when he had booked six luxury cars for his VIP clients, only for the guests to be forced into black and yellow cabs by the taxi cartel.
He also points to the corruption that has become endemic to the system. Taxi operators, Reis says, are more than just transport providers – they function as commission agents, directing tourists to specific restaurants, hotels, and even more questionable establishments. “The operators are opposing the apps because this will challenge their monopoly. And they don’t want to join them because it will mean an end to their commissions,” he told me.
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More conflict, less change
Beyond these worries are attendant ones about daily life. Reis’ frustration encompasses scenarios that will sound familiar to any local: trying to get to a hospital in the middle of the night, only to be told by taxi drivers that they don’t want to make the trip and watching tourist taxis occupy every available parking space in the city. “I am a diabetic who has lost his toes, so I am completely dependent on my wife,” he said. “I can’t call an Ola to even get to the pharmacy. When I do, I have to park miles away because all the parking in Panjim is taken over by tourist cabs.”
The result is a state where residents have essentially given up on shared transportation. Goa’s vehicle ownership stands at 882 vehicles per 1,000 people, more than three times the national average. But this isn’t so much a sign of prosperity as that of systemic failure, and an urban planning disaster. Even now, Reis is cynical about actually witnessing the arrival of app-based taxis in Goa. There is no political will to challenge what he sees as an entrenched vote bank. The taxi operators represent a significant political constituency that successive governments have been reluctant to antagonise.
The tragedy is that even if app-based taxis do arrive in Goa, they’re unlikely to solve any fundamental problems. Taxi operators will still struggle with the economics of low-density markets. Tourists might get convenience, but will pay roughly the same high fares. And residents will still lack affordable daily transport, because what Goa really needs isn’t premium services but a functional bus and autorickshaw system.
The government’s draft guidelines, while well-intentioned, are unlikely to result in any real impact. And we’ll have witnessed another round of maximum conflict, minimal transformation.
This article is part of the Goa Life series, which explores the new and the old of Goan culture.
Karanjeet Kaur is a journalist, former editor of Arré, and a partner at TWO Design. She tweets @Kaju_Katri. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)