Good Morning Sir, how can I help youIJ is all which the first batch of Chandigarh police constables have learnt in an English speaking course designed by the department for them to handle the situation in which foreigners are involved.
The first batch of 30 Chandigarh police Constables, mostly from the rural areas of Haryana and Punjab, could not learn to speak a sentence and also faltered if one entered into a prolonged conversation.
But they were taught a smattering of the Queen's language to deal with foreigners.
"We had to call our seniors if someone, particularly a foreigner started asking something in English. Now, at least, we would be able to comprehend what is being said," one of the constables who attended the course claimed.
Talking to The Pioneer, RS Ghumman, Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations and training) said that keeping in mind few previous incidents where foreigners were involved in a crime scene and our officials were not able to handle initial investigation, a very well planned English language speaking course was developed for the Constable level officials by the department with the help of guest faculty.
Ghumman claimed English language course has helped the officials as the confidence of talking in English has developed in them and they are comfortable speaking with the foreigners now.
But one of the constables said the duration of the course was too short which included one hour class for three weeks.
"Most of us do not have enough confidence to talk in English even after the completion of the course. But at least it is better than not knowing anything in English,"
he added.
Another trainee said they were taught to interact in a foreign accent, as the NRIs and foreigners do not easily understand Indian accent.
"It was difficult," he admitted, adding only continuous practice can help. S Chaudhary, Principle (Retd) of DAV college of Pehowa and guest faculty of the first batch, said that special focus on the need of vocabulary increase and the pronunciation improvement of officials was given during the entire course which could help them to interact with confidence with the foreigners who come to City beautiful.