The Immigration and Emigration authorities have resorted to increasing the number of on arrival visa counters as a temporary measure to address the visa issuance issue.

“First, we asked Mobitel to do it, and then, Mobitel had meetings and in the end they wrote to us saying that if they are to do anything, we have to change all our systems,” the Minister of Public Security, Tiran Alles under whose purview the Department of Immigration and Emigration comes, said in a press briefing yesterday (9) “So, all this took time.” Alles said that they have opened up 12 new on arrival visa counters in order to increase the number of on arrival visas that Sri Lanka issues, stating that inefficiencies are rampant. “Again, we have to go to the Parliament and tell the world that we are going back to a system that is not being used by any country,” Alles said. “You can’t even send a copy of a passport via this electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system. What you can send is only text, not even a picture.”

”It has been reported that tourists are spending an average of two and a half hours in the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake in order to obtain on arrival visas while international airlines have been expressing doubts in boarding passengers bound to Sri Lanka as they are not sure whether tourists will be granted a visa. Representatives of the tourism industry said that the industry is at risk due to delays in reactivating the ETA system.  

However, in response to a query by The Daily Morning, Alles said that he is unaware of the amount lost due to the loss of tourism.  The ETA system was scrapped due to the introduction of a new visa portal, run by VFS Global. However, after a viral video clip of a Sri Lankan national complaining against the visa system, when taken up in courts, the Supreme Court suspended a contract to IVS-GBS and VFS Global and ordered the Mobitel system to be reintroduced.