The Consulate General of Sri Lanka commissions a number of initiatives to serve the Sri Lankan Community based in Dubai and the Northern Emirates in efficient manner

Among many other initiatives to serve the Sri Lankan Community in Dubai and the Northern Emirates in efficient manner, the Consulate General of Sri Lanka commissioned a smart queue system with the sponsorship of the Bank of Ceylon on Monday 22 October 2018. With this new smart queue system in place, it has been expected to reduce the queues at the counters of the Consulate General drastically, whilst also routing the clients to the correct officers directly without going through the receptionist.

Mr. Tharindu Samaraweera, the Business Promotion Officer of the Bank of Ceylon participated at the occasion held to formally commission this system at the Consulate General on 22^nd October 2018.

In addition to the above system, the Consulate General has already established a PABX phone system in the Consulate General whereby the caller can get much needed information before calling directly to the relevant officer concerned. Given the large number of calls received by this Consulate General per day, many people found the new phone system quite efficient and informative.

Additionally, steps were taken by the Consulate General during the previous years to develop the website of the Consulate General in very comprehensive manner by which the General Public could obtain all information related to Consular, Visa, Labour or any other task done by the Consulate General and download the necessary applications/forms, prior to arriving in person to the Consulate General for obtaining such services. Further, the website of the Consulate General was translated to both Sinhala and Tamil languages, in keeping with the trilingual policy of the Government of Sri Lanka and also creating accessibility to a wider cross section of the General Public, dismantling the language barriers.

The website of the Consulate General of Sri Lanka in Dubai also won the award in 2017 for “Best Website or Microsite” under “Government Institutions and NGO Sector” in SLT Zero One awards night held in Colombo in May 2017.

Further, the Consulate General of Sri Lanka also initiated sending the passport applications received at its end to the Department of Immigration and Emigration of Sri Lanka through a private courier service, reducing the time taken between submitting the passport at the Consulate and receiving the printed passport by the applicant at least by a month’s time, thereby enabling the applicants to receive their passports within a period of one month. Due to this system, many Sri Lankan applicants availing the amnesty sceme declared by the UAE Government have been able to obtain their passport through minimal time and to rectify their visa.

As the next step of advancing the services, it is expected in the near future to introduce e-passport application system through the Consulate General of Sri Lanka under the pilot project to be executed by the Department of Immigration and Emigration of Sri Lanka. Through this proposed system, the passports to the Sri Lankan applicants will be issued through a lesser period of time and more efficiency in future.

In the above context, Mr. M.N. Ranasinghe, the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration also visited the Consulate General of Sri Lanka in September 2018 and had successful discussions with the Consul General and the officials of the Consulate General.