Police emergency call centres in the provinces

The Police Department is to decentralise operations of the 119 Police emergency call service centre while establishing emergency call centres in the provinces. “Providing an efficient and a productive service to the public is the main objective of this programme,” Inspector General of Police N K Illangakoon said.

“The centre covers the whole country and sometimes it is a difficult task.

Discussions are on to establish the centres in provinces as well to combine with other telecommunication institutions related to the subject,” he added.

IGP Illangakoon was addressing the inauguration of the 119 Police Emergency Call Service extension programme while opening the second call centre at the Mirihana Police Station yesterday.

The Police emergency service 119 was established in 2004 .

“There are certain drawbacks in this service and the public have to face some problems due to the lack of phone lines and receiving centres. The Police Department has taken measures to develop and upgrade the service.

The new call centre was established with 20 phones - 10 phones to receive calls and others to transfer the calls to certain police stations,” the IGP said.

The 119 emergency call service received 5,491 calls at the beginning. It had received 437,253 calls as of now. It receives around 3,450 calls a day and 1,600 out of these are complaints by the public.

The Police has deployed officers to work on this emergency service during the day.

A motorcycle or Police jeep has also been deployed in police stations islandwide for this. The public can dial 119 from a land phone, hand phone or call box during an emergency.

A complaint can be made free of charge. The public can lodge complaints in any language.

The Police is ready to respond to complaints 24 hours of the day. A large number of calls have already received with the opening the new centre. The first is regarding illegal felling in the Yakkalamulla area.

Senior DIG (Western Province) Anura Senanayake, Senior DIG (Administration) Gamini Navaratne, DIGs and police officers were also present.