E-passport next year despite key infrastructure costs and revenue loss
The Department of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) of Sri Lanka has mandated prior online registration for passport applications, effective until the e-passport system’s introduction next year.
Harsha Ilukpitiya, the Controller General, stated this move aims to reduce congestion at the DIE head office by requiring online appointment scheduling.
Sri Lankans applying for new passports must now pre-register online, and this system has been extended to applicants outside Colombo, he added.
However, a recent surge in head office applicants due to unawareness of the new rule highlights the need for improved communication.
The new appointment system has reduced the daily issuance of machine-readable passports (MRPs) from 3,000 to 800, potentially resulting in a revenue loss of Rs.4 billion over the next five months due to the drop in passport issuance by 2,200 per month.
The transition to e-passports, necessitating an IT infrastructure overhaul, is expected to take at least 18 months from the contract date, raising concerns about a potential passport shortage, a Public Security Ministry official said.
To manage this, DIE has limited passport issuance until the new supplier can provide the required stocks. Last year, the government tendered for 5 million e-passports with biometric chips meeting the latest International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
After an eight-year delay, the e-passport project was revived with a contract awarded to a joint venture between Thales, a global company, and Just in Time Technologies (JITT).
Thales is working on the artwork, and once approved, the consortium is expected to deliver the first batch of 100,000 e-passports by July 2025, with plans to supply one million annually, Mr. Ilukpitiya said.
The Ministry of Public Security is to submit a cabinet paper to procure the Thales/JITT PKI system and proposed personalising e-passports using their system on a ‘fee per passport’ basis. This would necessitate abandoning the current personalisation system, costing over Rs.1 billion and incurring additional fees for personalisation services from this consortium, ministry sources said.
The e-passports will feature enhanced security with personal details stored on an electronic chip. The new supplier must provide a high-volume passport printing machine system, costing around Rs.1.5 billion.
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