Cops provided trilingual Phrase Book

Ridma DISSANAYAKE

Sinhala and English are the languages we primarily use in the administrative service. But at present Tamil also has become important, said National Languages and Social Integration Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara yesterday.

The Police service is one of the most expanded services in the world. Because of that improving the competence of police officers is extremely vital, he added.

The Minister was addressing the Trilingual Phrase Book handing over ceremony organized by the Official Languages Commission (OLC). The ceremony was held at the OPA headquarters.

He noted that most of the people would wish to make statements to the Police in Sinhala or Tamil. Only a few would desire to make such statements in English. So it is more important that Police officers are proficient in both Sinhala and Tamil as well as in English.

"This trilingual phrase book is to help Police officers obtain a level of proficiency related to their day-to-day work in these two official languages and in English,said OLC Chairman N Selvakumara.

He said that they hope to introduce a trilingual phrase book to the other fields such as Health.

The cost of compilation of this trilingual phrase book was entirely borne by the OLC with funds provided to it by the Government annually. The cost of printing was provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) under the special project carried out by the OLC.

This book will not only help police officers in their day-to-day functions in other languages.

It will also help to improve their own mother tongue when it comes to performing duties in their mother tongue.

Therefore it will be very useful for police officers who are engaged in their particular field activity,said IGP Dr Mahinda Balasooriya.

65,000 copies of this book were handed over to the Police Department to be distributed among the concerned Police Officers.