Ending a two-week long technical problem Issuance of passports back to normal from today - Immigration Dept.

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Ending a two-week long technical error which ceased its operations fully the Department of Immigration and Emigration yesterday said the issuance of regular and one day service passports will recommence from today.  

Denying rumours that the problem was due to the department running out of passport stocks and an impending increase of charges for the issuing of passports, the department confirmed its service will be back to normal after the brief Vesak holiday.  

Immigration and Emigration Department Spokesperson Deputy Controller Piyumi Bandara said although the routine operations commenced today the applicants should have to book an appointment before they seek services.  The public is therefore requested to make an appointment through the department’s website, http://www.immigration.gov.lk/ or contact through the hotline: 070 7101060 to make a reservation for the desired service.  This measure has been taken to avoid congestion and unnecessary delays as the department’s daily capacity is to issue about 2,000 passports.  

A backlog of several thousand passports were created within just two days as the Immigration Department was crippled with a system malfunction on May 4th, which was expected to be back to normal within a couple of days but failed.  The department’s heavy duty computer servers had a malfunction and had encountered a problem in the system of printing passports, as a result of issues pertaining to scanning new data.