Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: Ganesh Gaonkar, the GTDC Chairman and Sanvordem MLA, informed reporters in Panaji on Thursday that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has granted the jeep operators’ request to lower the cost of transportation to the Doodhsagar waterfall.
Gaonkar met with the chief minister at his Altinho official residence after a confrontation with the jeep operators.
After meeting with the chief minister, Gaonkar told reporters that the chief minister had agreed to lower the prices. However, when asked how much the decrease would be, he said the chief minister had not specified it.
According to Gaonkar, the chief minister has directed the president of the Sanvordem BJP Mandal to meet with the jeep operators and persuade them to start operating the Doodhsagar waterfall again.
Due to different levies imposed by the state government, the jeep operators were protesting that they were forced to charge a high price.
According to sources, the Forest Department has registered about 431 jeeps that are allowed to transport tourists. To limit the damage on wildlife, the Forest Department only permits 240 journeys each day, despite the fact that there are 431 Jeeps. However, the number of daily journeys increases on weekends and during the holidays.
Only 98 jeeps were in service at first, but as demand for the ride continued to rise, so did the number of jeeps. Even the number of trips permitted in the forest area was increased from 170 per day to 240 per day.
With assistance from the local panchayat and forest department, the Jeep Operators Association essentially oversaw the jeep operation, from scheduling services to providing rides. A few years ago, the queue system was used to schedule jeep rides on a first-come, first-served basis. However, the association launched an online reservation system as demand grew.
They began by using the borrowed website, and then they used the Associations gateway to launch their own booking service.
Everything was going smoothly until GTDC took over last year. In 2023, the government forced the GTDC to enter the Dudhsagar jeep industry in an effort to promote, streamline, and make the area more tourist-friendly.
