For quick action dial 119

By Isuri Kaviratne

If you want quick action in an emergency, call 119. This emergency police service which initially got some 150 calls a day now gets 500 and hopes there will soon be about 1000 calls a day for quick action on anything from bomb blasts and crimes to traffic jams, police emergency chief DIG Mahinda Balasooriya said.

He said police hope to install closed-circuit TV surveillance systems in an effort to track criminals.The project is to be implemented in Colombo first and then introduced to other areas as well.

“New motor cycles have been given to the Western Province 119 centre and new emergency cars used to patrol the Colombo metropolitan area while we are planning to start a computer-aided dispatch system as well”, he said.

Comparing the Sri Lankan emergency service system with similar systems in foreign countries, the DIG said he is trying to bring it to that level as well.

He said the police are looking forward to introduce a system to divert phone calls directly to the fire brigade and ambulance services depending on the need of the caller. DIG Balasooriya said several serious crimes have been solved after they were reported to 119 first.

He said the number of emergency calls received had increased to 500 calls per day while it was around 150 calls per day at the beginning.

“The large public response we get is a big improvement and an achievement and we expect the number of calls to increase to 1000 after another two years”, he said.

He said regardless of the importance of a complaint, police react immediately while they get a lot of calls about traffic jams in Colombo as well.