'Tamil proficiency to accelerate development'

Ridma DISSANAYAKE

As a developing country, communication is essential to achieve our goals. Therefore, I am committed to provide my support in improving Tamil proficiency among the Sinhalese, said Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Minister Rajitha Senaratne addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Batticaloa district fishery conference held at Dewanayagam Hall, Batticaloa recently.

"We as seniors should provide Sinhala, Tamil and English language knowledge to our children as they are our future generation.

"The lack of Tamil proficiency is a main problem in every sector in Sri Lanka including fisheries. A large number of development projects are proceeding slowly because of this and solutions must be found immediately," he said.

"There are 223 fishery villages with 22,726 fishery families in the Batticaloa district. They have to communicate with others in their day-to-day activities but they cannot speak Sinhala well. Therefore their work gets disrupted," he added.

He stressed that language proficiency is essential to smoothly carry out work in any sector.

"All measures will be taken immediately to build a modern fisheries industry and to uplift the livelihoods of the fishing community," he said.

All Island Madel Association patron Rev Father Sextus Kurukulasooriya, Resettlement Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, Ceynor Foundation Managing Director Ujith Anuradha, Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Ministry's Director General Indra Ranasinghe and a large number of officials and fishery community representatives in the Batticaloa district also participated.