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It is said that the greatest of tragedies have been committed with the best of intentions. In terms of long term planning, entering the global village fully equipped to meet and understand the world, different people of different dialects, to study subjects such as medicine, a common language such as English is a sine qua non.

Therefore, after half a century of experience and two new generations, it can safely be recorded that the abandoning of the English Language in the school curriculum was a colossal folly and irreparable blunder.

The English language has grown and now reached universal heritage. Today in Sri Lanka professionals, staff officers down to the ordinary rankers are full of remorse and sorrow that during their formative years of education and thereafter they were denied the learning of the English language.

There is a mad rush to learn English. Even those who have not mastered the language sufficiently are making a packet giving tuition.

I was taught the Englishman's English well over half a century ago and am still learning. But I cannot make up my mind to say or write, I met with Mr. Sam, for me it is simply, I met Mr. Sam; and I will say Mr. Sam met with an accident. Can some authority elucidate on this point.

The beauty of the English language, English Literature and the immortal heritage of English poetry have been lost to two generations.

Hundreds of poems, beloved favourites, gay and witty light verse, sparkling wisdom, exciting stories of the lives and times of poets, their imperishable works, with portions of forgotten history and luminous guides have been completely lost to this country.

Add to this tragedy large numbers of those graduates of old of former Ceylon, unable to bear the horror and atrocities, such as Black July 1983 have left the island and settled in foreign countries.

It is said that in Toronto, one of the big cities of Canada of the population of 2 million, 250,000 are Sri Lankans of whom, 50,000 are Sinhalese. This should speak volumes.

Today free education is a big problem for parents and a crime on the children; Government schools lack basic essential facilities, sufficient qualified teachers.

Tutories have sprung up everywhere. Children are rushing to school bent in two with about 5 to 10 kilos of books packed in bags on their backs.

Parents are rushing their children for tuition, which has become a sine qua non at great expense.

Restore bus service route no. 102

As an indefatigable Minister who has done your community and the nation proud, we take this opportunity to draw your attention to an urgent matter of public importance - how the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) has abandoned route no. 102 (Angulana-Kotahena).

At a time President Mahinda Rajapaksa is making a salutary effort to rejuvenate our national image and identity, it is indeed discouraging to discover that SLTB, the country's key, state-owned road transport provider, has chosen to abdicate its right to operate on this vitally important route.

It is a crying shame that the SLTB arbitrarily thought it fit to abandon route no. 102 which earlier operated from Rawathawatte to Kotahena. Commuters on this important route, which covers the sacred St. Anthony's Church at Kochchikade, the Khan clock tower roundabout and St. John's fish market, have been cruelly sacrificed to a bunch of mercilessly private bus operators who ply with impunity.

As regular commuters on this route, we have suffered enormous indignities at the hands of these maniacs in the form of private bus crews, but we dare not protest as we cannot afford to hire cabs on a daily basis.

To prove our point of gross irresponsibility on the part of the private bus operators, let us cite an example: On October 3 which was the first Tuesday of the month, there was no. 102 bus to Kotahena for almost an hour.

As scores of devotees make it a point to visit St. Anthony's Church, Kochchikade on the first Tuesday of each month, it was a desperate situation. From around 8.10 am to nearly 9 am, there was no bus in operation on this day.

A private bus on this route, which starts from Angulana takes more than one and half hours to reach its destination Kotahena even after 8.15 a.m. when congestion has eased to some extent after the school traffic.

Commuters herded into packed buses like cattle being taken to slaughter have to sweat it out as this 'bus mafia' immune to human suffering stop for a few minutes at almost every other halt.

The worst is Wellawatte (where the traffic OIC should be 'felicitated' for adding to the chaos on his section of the Galle Road), where these buses stop for about three minutes near the Vihara Lane halt and for about five minutes, ironically near the police station itself (opposite the old market).

These private bus operators do not seem to believe in time-tables as more often than not, commuters have to wait for more than half an hour for a bus after 8 in the morning. They are, according to people in the know, more interested in private hires than plying on a reasonable time-table on a vital route they monopolise in the absence of the SLTB. And even if the journey from Angulana to Kotahena takes three hours, so much the merrier for this 'mafia' because there is no competition from the SLTB on this run.

While people suffer in silence, the SLTB operates buses to Dehiwala and Mt. Lavinia on the Galle Road during peak hours, which is meaningless because almost all buses pass these towns to reach their ultimate destinations.

The SLTB has inducted some of the new buses to route no. 154 (where there is a private bus in operation every five minutes from Angulana to Kiribathgoda) but strangely route no. 102 remains abandoned.

The funeral undertakers

I am writing this with a firm belief that the social services as well as the public relations ministers would consider the opinions of the right thinking masses and some serious action be taken at the earliest convenience.

Almost all Sri Lankans are fully aware of the exorbitant charges that are being levied by the funeral undertakers. The Colombo funeral undertakers of repute charge a minimum of Rs. 30,000 and above for a casket other than their other services of course after varnishing and padding the interior. The carpenters who make these coffins and the caskets use the cheapest wood known as Albeezia.

They sell to the undertakers for around Rs. 2500 without varnishing or padding and still make a decent profit of Rs. 1000 to Rs. 1500 which is quite reasonable.

The undertakers cost of varnishing and interior padding would not cost more than Rs. 4000 thereby making a minimum profit of Rs. 20,000 to 25,000 which is very unreasonable and inhuman. My main suggestions to the State higher-ups are as follows.

Recruit youngsters with a decent education, send them to a foreign country like England or the States to get a training in various aspects of body embalming and other requisites.

Once they return the State must open up funeral parlours in almost every town, say within a redius of 20 to 30 miles with a trainee in charge with some assistants.

This way these State-run funeral parlours can provide a better and an efficient service at less than half the cost charged by the reputed undertakers and still make a sizeable profit to the State. This will be very much appreciated and praised by one and all of the general public.

I am quite confident that the respective Ministers of Public Relations and Social Services would give serious consideration and act without much delay in launching this project for the sake of the general public.

Dual nationality

Taking of dual nationality is not so hard or embarrassed as the author of the article stated (Reference DN Oct. 19). I think he is misinformed or do not know how to obtain.

The letter seems to be preventing those who seek dual nationality obtaining it. If you think hard do not take it.

Remitting salaries of Govt. servants

The Ministry of Public Administration recently announced that it is making arrangement to remit the salaries of the State employees to the banks, specially to the State banks from next year.

This system may make things easier to the Government institutions including the risk of carrying huge sums of money from the banks. But it will create problems to so many people.

Whatever the services the State banks boast by way of advertisements, if one visits their banks only one will know about the delay one has to face in the banks. Very often only one or two counters are opened to serve the customers.

Thereby long queues are formed and the managers simply do not care to open additional counters to expedite the work. Managers are frequently seen with receivers glued to their ears. When the situation is such, how will it be when large numbers of State employees visit the banks to withdraw their salaries?

Apart from this, when the public go to the State institutions to get their official matter done, surely what they will be told is that the subject clerk has gone to the bank to withdraw his or her salary. This will be an excuse too to all the employees just to enter in the log book or take Short Leave or French Leave and skip away. Some will go home after their withdrawal only to be present the following day.

Police checking after dark

It seems to me that the police checking in the evening hours are basically useless, because they can not see who are riding in the vehicles (Reference DN Oct. 17).

A simple rule that after dark, one must switch on the interior light, would result in the police being able to see the passengers, and therefore, would probably result in more arrests of suspicious looking characters.

I would appreciate it if you would bring this idea to the relevant officials.

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Gamin Gamata - Presidential Community & Welfare Service
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