In a bid to reduce severe congestion One-day service passports from three regional offices from today

• Applicants who wish to seek the one-day service have to book an appointment through the department’s website

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

In a bid to reduce massive congestion at its head office from people who come for quick passports, the Department of Immigration and Emigration will decentralise its one-day service into three regional offices from today (4), the sources said.

The department will make available its one-day service to obtain new passports for the public from its regional offices in Matara, Vavuniya and Kandy from today onwards, the departmental spokesperson Piyumi Bandara said.
Applicants who wish to seek the one-day service still have to book an appointment through the department’s website www.immigration.gov.lk and obtain a date and time as only 100 appointments are currently given per office every day.

Deputy Controller Bandara said that this decision was taken considering the heavy congestion of applicants arriving at their head office in Battaramulla every day for the past couple of months since the country was facing a severe economic crisis and many people wish to leave for foreign employment.

“Thus far we have been issuing the special one-day service from our departmental head office and the regional offices on the regular service. But since over 2, 000 applicants have started to visit every day, this was becoming a big problem,” she said.

Also, the other reason to entrust the regional offices with the special service was that Colombo’s head office has already received bookings for the next 60 days. Therefore, the public are requested not to walk into these regional offices or the head office without a prior appointment, the official said.

However, the department has a special consideration for the urgent cases that were offered with immediate foreign employment and such applicants are advised to send their document proof to the hotline 070 6311711 through WhatsApp. 

They will be given priority in appointments, she further said.