The Hon. Ananda Wijepala - Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs
The Minister provided data on passport issuance, stating that about 3,000 applications are received daily and 246,714 passports were issued between 1 January and 16 May 2025. He said around 4,000 passports are issued per day across one-day, regular, foreign mission, emergency, and backlog-clearing categories. He stated that one-day service applications are processed within a few hours, passport validity is not extended, and a 24-hour one-day passport service has been implemented from 18 February 2025.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 (a) Will he inform this House - (i) Approximately 3,000 per day. (ii) 246,714 (from 2025.01.01 to 2025.05.16). (iii) Approximately 4,000 per day. This includes passports issued under the one-day service, regular service, via foreign missions, emergency passports, and blank passports issued to clear previously unissuable applications. (iv) No, a long time is not taken. All applications accepted under the one-day service receive passports within a few hours. The validity period of an existing passport is not extended; instead, a new passport must be obtained when the current one is nearing expiry. (v) To facilitate faster and more convenient issuance, the Department of Immigration and Emigration has implemented a 24-hour one-day service for accepting and issuing passport applications with effect from 2025.02.18.
¶ 02 (b) Does not arise.
Provenance
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- Hansard, Tuesday, 20 May 2025 ·No. 1749010823009957 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Ananda Wijepala - Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 May 2025. No. 1749010823009957. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/25766