Endless passport queues not due to lack of staff but lack of material - DIE

• Issuance of passports could be increased up to 5,000 a day in the coming weeks 

 By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana   

The prevailing endless passport queues are not due to the lack of staff at the Department of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) but owing to the shortage of material to be issued as per the public demand, and the issuance of passports will be increased up to 5,000 a day in the coming weeks,an official said.   
Responding to numerous allegations of inefficiency of the staff of the DIE a senior official said lack of staff was never the case due to the shortage of passports thus creating lengthy queues outside but lack of books to be issued.   
Presently the department issues about 2,000 to 2,500 passports a day including one day service and this has been the figure for the past couple of years, which is attributed by the public to the inefficiency of the departmental staff.   
The official said the prevailing staff at the DIE head office in Suhurupaya could even facilitate the issuing of up to 5,000 passports a day if there was sufficient material.   
“We had to reduce the number of passports issued per day down to even 500 several months back as there was a very small stock remaining and issuing 2,000 books a day could exhaust our stocks within a couple of weeks, thus creating greater issues.   
Therefore, we had to plan and reduce the number of passports issued per day and continue to issue them for a fairly longer period to control any public unrest,” the official said.    However, with the arrival of new passport stocks the authorities could even increase the issuance up to 4,000 passports a day.