The Hon. Eranga Weeraratne - Deputy Minister of Digital Economy
The Deputy Minister stated that the Government is pursuing digital economy initiatives to improve public service delivery, reduce administrative inefficiency, and increase transparency through streamlined processes, automated verification, and real-time data use. He cited immediate projects including the Sri Lanka Unified Digital Identity, online issuance of civil certificates for overseas Sri Lankans, and an online President’s Fund application portal. He also outlined cashless payment measures, including the GovPay rollout, promotion of LankaQR for SMEs, efforts to reduce merchant discount rates, and plans for a national digital payments card for domestic transport and related transactions.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Answer tabled.
¶ 02 (a) (i) Yes.
¶ 03 (ii) The Government is implementing multiple programmes to develop Sri Lanka’s digital economy and deliver transparent public services:
¶ 04 1) Introducing digitization into the economy to enhance growth and competitiveness, focusing on digital public services and cashless systems.
¶ 05 2) Reducing over-regulation and inefficient administration via: - Streamlining government service processes and payments to improve efficiency; - Automating verification and approval workflows; - Enhancing transparency and monitoring of transactions to reduce fraud; - Enabling faster, data-driven decision-making with real-time data and tools.
¶ 06 2.1) Key immediate projects: - Sri Lanka Unified Digital Identity (SLUDI): a secure, biometric-based ID platform; - Online issuance of birth, marriage and death certificates for overseas Sri Lankans (launched 7 Feb 2025); - Online application portal for the President’s Fund (launched 7 Feb 2025).
¶ 07 3) Advancing a cashless society: - GovPay rollout (launched 7 Feb 2025): 16 institutions onboard initially, 30 by April 2025, and 100 by Q4 2025; transaction fees reduced from Rs. 50 to Rs. 15; - Promoting LankaQR payments, especially for SMEs; working towards reducing merchant discount rates toward zero, following models like India’s; - Introducing a national digital payments card for domestic transactions, particularly transport (bus, rail, tolls).
¶ 08 (௦) Not applicable.
¶ 09 VAVUNATHIVU DIVISIONAL SECRETARY'S DIVISION: DRINKING WATER FACILITIES
¶ 10 Question 3 (75/2024) by The Hon. Hesha Withanage Ankumbura Arachchi on behalf of the Hon. Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam to the Minister of Urban Development, Construction and Housing.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 20 March 2025 ·No. 1746596381071973 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/24026
Cite as: The Hon. Eranga Weeraratne - Deputy Minister of Digital Economy. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 March 2025. No. 1746596381071973. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/24026