He made this observation at the ceremonial launching of Sri Lanka Visa Stickers and introduction of On Line Passport Application filling facility recently.

The launching ceremony was held at the Immigration and Emigration Department auditorium.

Minister Navinna said the introduction of the new technologies is taking place under the directions of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

“Plans are afoot to shift the Immigration and Emigration Department from the current rented out building to our own 15 story building at Battaramulla within two months,” Minister Navinna said. “Seven stories will be given to this department, another five to the Department of Registration of Persons and the rest to the Ministry.”

The minister also said that with the enhancement of technology and the provision of infrastructure facilities, the Emigration Department is expected to earn a profit of Rs 15,000 million in 2016,in comparison to the Rs 11,000 million profit in 2015.

With regard to the new launch, the existing visa issuance system by affixing the rubber stamps is replaced by newly introduced Machine Readable Visa (MRV) with aligning to the Immigrants and Emigrants Regulations.

The previous system of affixing a rubber stamp is a procedure and encounter a number of problematic situations such as visa forgeries, impersonation issues, alteration of visas, lack of mechanism for fighting abuses and sometimes a threat to national security the protection of citizens.

In order to overcome the above state of affairs, introduction of Machine Readable Visa which encompasses security features with high technology is a great milestone while complying with International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) standards 9303. Further, the time taken for the issuance of visas can be minimised thereby the applicants could save their time.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration hopes that the introduction of Visa Stickers will help facilitate different types of visas, ensure and protect the free movement of bona fide passengers while detecting mala fide passengers, detection of forgeries and fighting against abuses, facilitating border checks and expediting the issuance of visas, great assistance to law enforcing authorities and, enhanced national security and ensure safety of citizens.

Internal Affairs, North Western Development and Cultural Affairs Ministry Secretary D.Swarnapala and Immigration and Emigration Controller General Nihal Ranasinghe also participated at the occasion.