Minister visits Immigration, Emigration Department:

Redress to public woes

Nethali STRUYS

National Languages and Social Integration Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara made a surprise visit to the Immigration and Emigration Department recently. The Minister made this visit to inquire about a number of complaints made against the Department.

The Minister advised the officials to prepare documents such as visa forms which are only in English language in Sinhala and Tamil languages to avoid difficulties faced by rural communities.

He advised the Department to assist the public who have language problems to fill only the essential data in English and make data processing easy.

The Minister took immediate action to fulfill the Tamil and Arabic language translators' shortage at the Department by arranging translators from the Ministry's language translator's pool till permanent translators are recruited.

The Minister said he will make arrangements to provide the department with Tamil and Arabic translators.

He pointed out that the need of filling forms only in English had created unnecessary problems to rural communities. "Touts and other individuals are the ones who benefit by this. Innocent public are charged unreasonably," he said.

He said to mention 'Filling the form in English is more suitable' on the Sinhala and Tamil language forms.

He further said that arrangements will be made to offer citizenship to Sri Lankan refugees who were born in Chennai during the war period.